Drops of Life
by Sky.Fay
Summary: While traveling Ruri, a female Mushi Master, runs into Ginko. She tells him of a village being plagued by a mushi and the two travel there together to help the villagers. Will Ruri become close with Ginko and allow him to discover her past? What will happen after Ruri becomes injured and doesn't even remember what happened? ON HIATUS AS OF 7/16/13.
1. Nature isn't Quiet

The leaves rustled behind the ebony and ivory haired girl making her head snap to the side to look behind her. Of course she had known that she wasn't alone for around the past hour or so; ever since she began her hike away from the little village. She was used to traveling old and forgotten paths of the forest with the occasional lost traveler, but this person was different. She could sense it in purely in their presence; that and the fact that the mushi had grown more apt to try to get near her ever since she sensed that she wasn't alone.

They came up to her circling around her ankles and sitting on her bare feet as she kept on walking. Some of them were odd looking and some a little scary, but they were more of pests than anything else at the moment.

She stopped for a moment, trying to center on the persons' energy that seemed to be attracting so many mushi even though she had just recently soaked herself in incense smoke. With a slight sigh she plopped onto the green and brown floor, batting some of the little beasts away from her.

Her body was tired from the battle she'd fought in only a night ago and needed a rest anyway. Her eyes drooped as her hand reached around in her bag for some a few incense stick to lite, it would keep most of them at bay for at least a little while.

"I guess I'll just have to buy some more when I get to another town," she yawned stretching and closing her eyes for a few seconds, enjoying the familiar sounds of nature for a few moments before it was interrupted again by the annoyance lagging on behind her. The person hadn't made any actual noise, but their life force was so strong it distracted her from what she needed to be doing.

She wasn't avoiding this person for any real reasons besides the fact that she would most likely get incessant questioning about why her hair was cropped short like a man's, spiked up in the front, and why it was pure black and white. It would either be that or they would get too scared of her to even look her in the eyes.

Then again she didn't really like it when people looked directly into her eyes. She would see things about them; their joy and happiness, their pain and suffering. She felt like she was intruding every time she looked.

But enough of being dramatic and serious as I'm sure our main character wouldn't enjoy that too much. She isn't really the most serious all the time herself, even so the facts about her hair and the whole thing with the eyes and seeing people emotions and fragments of their past is true. On with the story (now in first person)!

I kneeled on the ground in the clearing and lit the sticks quickly and with ease. The smoke kept away the mushi and even though it would've been much easier to smoke, I couldn't get over the wave of sickness I always felt when I tried.

As I stood up I heard something rustling in the bushes behind me. A light wind swept through the trees, blowing out two of my sticks. The wind blew on, making the remaining candle flicker. I crouched down as fast as I could by a tree that was blocking some of the wind and cupped my hand around the delicate thing as if I was holding onto it for dear life.

"C'mon stay lit, stay lit, stay lit…" I mumbled some incoherent words to myself trying to cheer the candle on in its fight to retain a single spark.

"That could explain it," I could tell that it was a young man, somewhere in his twenties, by the sound of his voice. "Do you need any help?"

I refused to look up at him, instead focusing on the tiny, dying ember that rested on top on the stick. Muttering something that sounded like 'No.' under my breath I focused on the spark of life still left. But alas, even as I tried to lightly blow a bit of tender life into the damned thing, it went out.

I stood up, finally looking at the man. My eyes grazed over one of his not quite locking on it. Most of the time I had my power under control, but if someone took me by surprise or I wasn't distracting myself then I could see. It did help though that he only had one eye though. I couldn't see through his hair that covered that part of his face, but I could tell that it wasn't there.

He had bright white hair kind of like her and oddly colored green eyes. He had a monotone way of speaking and an almost stocky build. He was wear a white shirt, brown pants, and a long trench coat that nearly touched the forest floor. He was taller and paler than most and was carrying a box looking bag strapped to his shoulders. All in all he reminded me of myself in a way.

"What are you doing out here?" He glanced at the three discarded incense sticks that lied on the ground. His voice was muffled by the cigarette that was hanging loosely from one side of his mouth.

"Going… somewhere," I relied dully turning my back on him. "Do you have any food to sell?" I wasn't really sure where I was going, I just had a general idea.

"No, and where might somewhere be exactly?" He began walking towards me until we were side by side.

"What does it matter?" We began walking, both looking straight ahead.

"Just curious… and wondering if you had heard any… weird stories about the place." I knew that question. I asked that a lot, too. I'm also a Mushi Master, and by the looks of him so was this guy.

"Yeah… I heard some stories about this town a ways away. By the sounds of it the disturbances are being caused by some kind of mushi." I knew that he would ask more, but I didn't go on.

"Hmm," he made a funny little grunting noise in the back of his throat, "What kind of disturbances?"

"It might as well tell you everything seeing as how we'll be walking for a while, huh?"

"Who said I was going to walk with you the rest of the way?" He didn't say it with any venom, it more so of a statement of circumstances if that's what you want to call it. Nonetheless, I knew that he was curious and he was obviously a nomad who didn't seem to have a specific destination at the moment.

"Well if you're not gonna' walk with me then there's no point in you knowing." I speed up a little bit, just a few paces ahead of him. He heaved out a sigh.

"Fine," he was by my side again, "Tell me." I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye and then looked straight ahead again.

"The village is in this giant clearing in the woods and only about a hundred people live there. Last year this little boy was acting weird; he would walk into the woods all alone in the middle of the night and show up days later passed out on the outskirts of town. He never remembered any of what had happened either. The thing that the villagers found weird was that every time he came back he would be in perfectly good health except for the fact that there were some intricate markings on his stomach that no one could make any sense of.

"This went on for a while until the boy became sick and weak and was nearly dead. Then it seems that it may have transferred itself to another person. This time it was a girl, a little older than the boy, the same things happened with her except this time there was something different. Her hair began to get little streaks of blue-gray in them until she was finally weakened to the point of death.

"I've heard that it's passed to three more people and all of them have died. The only person who's lived is that little boy. I don't know what the markings look like, and I haven't met anyone reliable enough to tell me what they look like. And before you ask the boy is eleven, the girl was fifteen, the woman after her was twenty three, the man after her was in his late twenties, and I can only assume the person after him was in his thirties."

He didn't say anything for a few moments. I looked out to the horizon; the sun would disappear in only about half an hour. My throat was parched from talking so much that I had to open up my canteen and take a few sips of the cool water.

"Don't you think fifteen is a bit young to be dealing with such a force as the mushi?" I stopped suddenly. _How could he think I'm fifteen?! I haven't been called fifteen in about four years._

"You're a bad age guesser." I said simply. I had been training to be a Mushi Master since I was ten and became an 'official' one when I was fifteen. That was four years ago, almost five.

He stopped a few steps ahead of me and turned to face me. I knew that I was a bit short and underdeveloped in some places, but I still had hips and I figured I at least acted nineteen.

"You look fifteen."

"I'm nineteen… almost twenty. How old are you?" I started walking again. He turned his back to me and began a slow pace as well.

"I'm twenty two… almost twenty three. What's your name?" We were walking side by side again at the same pace.

"… You can call me R. And yours?" I couldn't bring myself to tell him my actual name.

He hesitated. "Ginko… that's not really your name, is it?" He said matter-of-factly.

I chuckled under my breath and half smiled. "You caught me; my parents weren't that boring with their name choice. My real name is Ruri."

The sun had nearly set. I needed to start setting up camp before it was completely dark out.

I dropped my bag and pulled out a little bundle of hay. "Use this to get the fire started," I snapped as I began looking around for sticks that could be used for the fire. After about fifteen minutes the fire was blazing, we were tucked into our separate sleeping rolls, and the sun had set.

"Why did you decided to come with me," I finally asked.

"Because I'm a Mushi Master, so I figure they'll trust me more than a teenager with a hobby. I'm just helping you."

"I'm a Mushi Master too, you know."

"Oh, sorry, I didn't…" I rolled over and tucked myself further into my blankets.

"Jerk," I muttered. I drifted off to sleep in the somewhat awkward silence than ensued.


	2. Tavern Owners Lie

When I woke Ginko was still asleep and the sun had yet to rise. Slowly standing, as to not make a sound, I stretched and began to pack away my things. Just as I was about to start walking away from his still sleeping form, I looked back at him.

"How tired was I last night?" I said to the air. I had never once trusted a stranger, but he was different somehow. I guess it was because of his white hair and green eye, I figured I could relate to him and that he was like me. Or maybe I was just too exhausted to make him go away. I turned my back on him again and started walking.

"You don't trust me that much, do you?" He was awake apparently. He sat up and stretched, his back making four popping noises right in a row. I turned around as slowly as possible, the tone of his voice wasn't hurt, but it still made me feel bad for just trying to leave him. Nonetheless, he was correct; I didn't really trust him.

"Tell me about yourself and maybe I will." I leaned against a tree, waiting for him to finish packing his things.

"I suppose there's nothing else to talk about is there? But," he heaved his box/bag onto his back, "in return you have to tell me about yourself." He gave me a half-smile and was soon walking in stride with me.

"I'll go first," he spoke after a few moments of silence. "The mushi have been attracted to me since I could remember. I've been interested in them too, and since I couldn't think of anything that I really wanted to do with my life I began to travel around learning from the best Mushi Masters until I had finally become one myself. Then, I began wandering around as a nomad, stopping at villages that needed my help and trying to learn more about people with special powers and the mushi.

"When I was young I woke up and couldn't remember anything except for the name Ginko." I felt my heart skip a beat at the name, which was the name of the mushi that had nearly infected me. I had known there was something off about the name, but now that I remember, the memories came flooding back. "So I can't tell you too much about my childhood… and, uh, is there anything else you want to know?" He didn't have any more to say.

"How did you lose your eye?" I whispered. I knew that he didn't have an answer for me, but that didn't matter.

I could feel him looking at me almost suspiciously, but I refused to look up. "I can't remember that either. All I know is that there's a never-ending darkness in that eye, which seems to attract mushi to me."

I wasn't pleased, though. He hadn't told me very much and most of it was vague. I knew that it wasn't his fault for the most part, but I was still curious. If I channeled my powers enough I would be able to see some of his memories, even if he couldn't, as long as he allowed me to. I knew that it would be intruding, but at this point I didn't care too much, I just needed to know about him.

"Is… is alright if…" I had never done this before, and I may have felt a bit awkward asking.

"If what?" We both stopped walking.

"Is it alright if I look into your memories?" I turned myself bravely toward him. He looked surprised if not anything else.

"What for?"

"Well you don't seem to know much about your past and I want to know."

"How are you going to be able to see my memories?"

"… I have this power in my eyes. They let me see things about people, usually just their emotions or the general thing that they're thinking. But if you allow me to… to go _into_ your head, then I can see your memories." I set my jaw, waiting for a response.

"Sure, if you're really that curious about me."

"Set down your bag and sit down," I said following my own instructions. He did as he was told. "Put out left hand with your palm up." I placed my right hand on top of his left, never moving my eyes of his eye. "You have to trust me and you have to let me in. If you don't want to we don't have to talk about what I see. Also, if something goes wrong then just squeeze my hand once and move your hand slowly away." I gently pressed my fore and middle finger into the center of his head. "One more thing, do **not** pull your head away from my hand or look at anything else but my eyes." I smiled brightly.

He grunted and nodded his head once. Slowly, the connection between us began to form. It shone brightly as a thin, silvery string began to wind around my right and his left hands. Three pieced of thread squirmed out of the cord and poked my head, his head, and my fingertips lightly before shimmering back into the cord. Then, everything went black.

I saw some of Ginko's recent memories and heard some of his inward thoughts. There was me, that village he had just been in, there were children infected with mushi, there was an old man playing the part of as god, there was a doctor who seemed to be a rather good if not somewhat naïve friend of Ginko's. Then, there was what I was really looking for: the locked part of his memories. It's hard to explain what it's like when you're looking at someone's memories. It's almost like a dream that's separated into files. Everything is separated by emotion, more or less.

As I 'walked' up to the locked part, I could feel him become nervous. Not wanting this to end quite yet, I sent soothing thoughts into his subconscious. I was almost there, almost to the lock. He became more and more nervous, more and more unfocused. At that point, I stopped. I might be stubborn as a bull and I knew that one day I sure as hell was going to see those memories, but today wasn't the day. Considering the circumstances, I could easily see why Ginko didn't trust me enough quite yet, or maybe he didn't want to see his past either.

I slowly came back to reality to see his one green eye still staring at me. I removed my fingers from his head. We slowly moved our hands away from each other, not wanting the connection to be broken in such a harsh manner which would harm us. I stared at him for another second before standing up. I had found out a lot about him in that little time, I didn't remember everything I saw, but I did remember seeing a young Ginko.

A little while after we began walking again I looked up at him, smirking. "You were adorable as a kid, you know!" He didn't look amused.

"Shouldn't you be telling me your life story?" It was his turn to smirk.

"I suppose," I breathed. "I grew up in a village in the middle of a forest. It was nice there, I guess. But I never really liked any of the people, I always preferred to watch the mushi and draw them. My mother could see them on occasion if they were especially powerful, but my father couldn't and he never really believed in anything me or my mother said. He never really cared for me in the first place, but with the mushi, which made him scared and angry, he just got worse.

"One day my mother became ill and soon after died. I couldn't deal with living with my father so I ran away. I doubt he even remembers me though; he had two other daughters that he cared for much more. That was when I was nine or ten. So I began training under different Mushi Masters who would take me in and eventually became one myself when I was about fourteen or fifteen. For the past four or five years I've been travelling around helping to cure people with mushi related diseases." I knew that he would ask about my appearance, my eyes and my hair, but I would let him ask that question. "Anything you want to ask me?"

"How did you get like this?" Without taking his eye off of the trail, he pointed in my general direction.

"One time I was exposed to a mushi called ginko, but I only saw it once and out of the corner of my eye. The Mushi Master I had been staying with at the time quickly tried to cure me, and he did, but my hair and eyes wouldn't ever go back to normal. But that's okay, I think I like myself better this way anyhow." He seemed to think for a minute.

"Well then why is your hair cut so short," he said poking me in the head.

"Because I like it this way." Crossing my arms and sticking my chin out, I could hear his chuckle.

"Well that's good enough a reason," I opened my eyes to see him smiling. We didn't talk for a long time after that, walking in silence wasn't unusual for me, but I felt uncomfortable with him there with me. "Another thing," he said after a long period of quiet, "I was not 'adorable' as a child." I smiled deviously.

"Yes you were," my sing-song voice made him look away.

"No, I wasn't," he grumbled and walked faster ahead of me. We went on for a while, arguing whether or not he was adorable or cute or anything else when he was younger.

"C'mon, it's just not right for a guy to be called adorable. If I called you adorable it would be completely fine, but you just can't call me adorable."

"Well as much as I apologize for infringing on your manhood when you were twelve, I'm not gonna' take it back. C'mon, Ginko, it's not like I'm calling you adorable. I'm calling you as a twelve-year-old adorable. And a persons' sex has nothing to do with this." He would retaliate with something else, but I knew that my argument had won. "Another thing too, if I was going to compliment your appearance, I would call you attractive, not adorable. It would be creepy if I really liked someone who I though was adorable."

"Fine… I see your point. That still doesn't mean that I like getting called that whether you're referring to me in the past or present tense." I smiled in victory.

We walked on, talking and arguing, asking questions, being quiet, until we reached a village. At that point it was rather late in the day. The sun was setting in the horizon just as we reached the outskirts of the town.

"Do you want to stay here for the night?" I asked, kicking a rock and watching it go flying into tall grass. He exhaled a puff of smoke from the cigarette he had just lit. The smell was a bit nauseating, but it would keep the mushi away from the villagers.

"As long as we find decent enough tavern, sure." He shrugged as we walked into the heart of the town. There weren't many people out, but the ones who were stared at us.

"You sleep in the forest on a bed roll and you want a 'decent enough' place to stay for the night?" It made sense, but it just sounded odd saying it out loud. He simply shrugged again.

Soon enough we found a nice looking place. "Do you have any rooms?" Ginko asked, pulling out a satchel of coins. The owner was a big burly man who looked to be about forty. He had the same dark hair/skin/eyes as everyone else, but his beard was graying and so was his hair.

"Only one," the shop owner said eyeing us, "it's got a big 'nough bed for two people an the room aint to small."

"We aren't-"

"Will this cover it?" I stuck out a hand full of coins and dropped them into his hand with my eyes on the floor. Ginko stared at me, nearly blushing.

"Yeah, that's just the right 'mount. An' don't go breakin' anything or it'll come outta' you're fee." I could feel my face getting warm. "It's the last room on the left."

I looked up as quickly as I could with a fake smile plastered on my face, "Thank you!" I walked as quickly as I could towards the stairs with Ginko right behind me. _What have I just done?_ I thought as my blush began subsiding.

"What are we supposed to do?" Ginko was standing behind me as I attempted to slide open the door. It was stuck.

"Just sleep in the bed," I said as I tried once more to, it really was stuck in there.

"Do you need help?" He took a step closer to me.

"I'm fine…" obviously I wasn't, but that was my response.

"No, you're not," he stepped closer after I tried again. He reached over me with ease and opened the door on his first try. I felt little pricks of electricity where he touched me, but quickly shook it off.

We walked into the room. The room was empty except for a dresser and a bed. A bed that was just barely big enough for two people. "Well that may have been false advertising." He said to himself as we made our way over to the bed. I dropped my bag on the floor on my side and began undress.

"What are you doing?!" He frantically asked turning away from me. I looked at him and then back at myself.

"Calm down, I'm wearing a tank and a shorts underneath this," I said pulling off my kimono and tossing it into the bag. "I don't like sleeping in my clothes." He slowly turned back to me. I gestured to my body and climbed into the bed.

"Fine," he pulled the blanket over his body and tried to scoot far away from me.

"You know, I'm not going to bite and you're going to fall off the bed as soon as you fall asleep." I poked him in the small of his back. He turned to face me again.

"I know," he poked me in the head, "I… I just don't want you thinking that I'm getting, uh, too friendly with you."

"I don't care, all I want to do right now is sleep," I buried my head in his shoulder just to make a point. He tensed for a moment, but only for a moment.


	3. Hot Springs of Doom

We had been in the town for three days now. I had waken up before Ginko again, unless he was faking of course. While I slowly peeled myself out of his arms he began stir, but then seemed to fall back into a deep slumber.

My feet landed silently on the cold hardwood. There were already some mushi floating around the room. Hoping that the floorboards wouldn't squeak too much as I moved, I pulled out the new pack of incense sticks I had purchased in the town on out journey to find a place to stay. I lit three and set them on the dusty dresser, soon the little beasts were gone.

I looked back as Ginko, hoping he would stay asleep for at least three more minutes. I just needed to slip out of my nightclothes and put on my loose kimono. I faced his back as I unclothed and then clothed myself in three swift motions. He yawned and turned over, rolling off of the bed and landing quietly on hardwood. It was a good thing that bed was so close to the floor.

He blinked open his eye and propped himself up on his elbows. "You're up early," he watched me as I took a smaller bag, which was filled with all of monotone kimonos, and slung it over my shoulder. I nodded my head and walked to the door. "It's barely light out, where are you going?"

He stood up, stretching his arms, and followed me to the door. "There's a hot spring behind this place and I need to be clean." I tried opening the door. It was stuck… again. He reached over my shoulder and slid it with ease.

"I'll go with you." I turned to look at him cautiously. He didn't seem to understand what he had just said. "Not like that…" he looked away from me, "I saw the spring too, there's a wall of rock in the middle of it."

"There are holes in the wall y'know." I said simply. "But," I said before he could speak, "I don't mind if you come with me, the water will be murky enough anyway even if there weren't those two foot high boulders sticking out of the bottom." He looked surprised. "What? I trust you, Ginko." I turned to go down the stairs next to our room that lead to the back of the tavern.

It was still dark out for the most part, but little wisps of shone over the horizon. When we arrived at the spring we just stood there for a little while. I looked up at Ginko.

"Ginko?" He looked down at me expectantly.

"Yeah?" He really might be the most clueless person, I thought.

"Turn around," I placed a hand on his shoulder and moved him while he sputtered out apologies.

I slipped it off while keeping one eye on Ginko the entire time. The silky fabric fell to the ground and I stepped into the warm water. I looked back at him again before I submerged my entire body.

"Okay, you can start undressing now," I swam through an opening in the short wall and hid my body behind a rock.

Finally, I heard water sloshing. "Alright, I'm in," I turned to look at him, crossing my arms on top of the stone. The only thing I could think about was how pale he was… and how much he was blushing. I hadn't really thought about the fact that we were both naked and alone before that point, and tried to conceal my growing blush.

He swam over to the rock that I had set my arms and head on, setting his elbows on it. I could see his chest now. It didn't help my reddening face. Before he could say anything, I had already ducked my head under the water. I needed to wash my hair anyway.

"So…" he said as I came back up and resumed my previous place on the stones. "Do you have any ideas about the mushi?" At he was attempting to have a normal conversation with me in our awkward situation.

"I'd imagine it's living in their stomachs or somewhere in their intestines. I won't be able to know anything until I get to see the markings on that boy, though, or whoever is infected now." I shrugged, looking everywhere but him.

"Yeah…" he trailed off and we were once again stuck in silence. I examined the trees while trying to think of something to say. That's when I saw them. Looking back on things, I probably should have told Ginko that there's been a prize on my head since I few years back when I ran into some trouble in this one town. I'd rather not get into details, but long story short, they sent a group of townspeople who were willing to become rooky assassins and track me until they could find me and kill me.

I glanced at Ginko, then back at the tree line. I knew their silhouettes too well. I looked back at Ginko, grabbing his wrist with both of my hands. "Listen, there are people trying to kill me. Just come over to this side of the rock and be quiet. I'm sorry." I pulled his arm toward me.

"What? Why?" He floated over to me without pausing though.

"It's a long story and I'd rather not make too much noise at the moment," I whispered as he floated closer to me.

"Fine," he sighed. I lifted one of my hands from his and placed it on his shoulder, pushing him further down into the water until only everything from his neck up was visible. The rock protected them from seeing our faces, but our clothes were still on the shore. I highly doubted they knew what all of my clothes looked like, but there was always a possibility.

Before I thought to pull my hands away from him, they began shaking. His hand made mine look much smaller than I had thought it to be when he placed it on top of my hand that was resting on his shoulder. Our legs touched. I realized that it was an idiotic thing to do at the time, but another disastrous dusting of pink grazed my cheeks.

"Sorry," we whispered in unison. Why did something like this have to happen at such a bad time? I'll admit that I actually kind of enjoyed being that close to him, but only kind of! Sure, I liked him, but I mean I only liked him a little bit… right? Or did I like him a little more. The simple fact that I trusted him so much and so easily scared me. Only when I looked at him again I saw how tightly my hand had been holding his arm. I loosened my grip and went to pull my hand away, but as I did, he gripped my hand in his.

I looked at him, my face was calm but nothing else about me was. We heard them then, they must have been tromping around our clothes. "Do ya' think the girls in there?" The first one asked.

"It'd be surprsin', can't majine her gettin' inta a nice spring with a guy." The second spoke. He must've pointed at Ginko's clothes because the next thing the other one said was:

"Wha- oh! Yer right, but we mays as well take a look."

We could hear them as they began to walk around the water. Eventually they were going to make it to the rock wall/bridge and see us. I couldn't let him get hurt, not because of me. A small stream of smoke wafted up from his mouth; I hadn't noticed he was smoking. I quickly pulled it out of his mouth and pressed it against the wet rock, it made a little sizzling sound which made me cringe.

"Sooo…." The first one spoke again. They were closer. "Whado do with 'er once we getter?" I clenched my jaw. Ginko's hand tightened around mine.

"Whatever ya' want. I jus' matters that we bring her back alive," the second one spoke without pause. These men were disgusting.

"Pigs," I said it so quietly that it seemed that only my mouth moved.

"What did you do that was so bad?" The white-haired man looked at me.

"I helped someone in their village that they're all scared of. It was a little girl with the power to understand most animals. She would talk to them sometimes, and that frightened the town. When her parents died they figured that they had their opening to kill the girl, but none of them had the heart to do it. They managed to poison her with a mushi, but I saved her and brought her somewhere safe. Now they all hate me." My voice was so low that he had to lean in a little to hear me.

"Hey! I think I see someone!" One of the men yelled.

"Sorry," Ginko mumbled before he let go of my hands. He pushed my back against the rock wrapped his arms around my shoulders and head. I held my arms against my chest with my hands resting on his.

"What are-"

"Hiding you," he cut me off. "Put your head down." I looked at him for one second more before burying my head into him.

I wasn't comfortable with the position, especially with the situation, but I allowed myself become comfortable in his arms. His hand was covering most of my head and pressing it against his chest.

"Oi! Who're you?" One of the men asked. I had my head pushed so close to his chest I couldn't see a thing.

"Go away, I'm on my honeymoon!" Ginko yelled back. I couldn't help but giggle at his response and the reaction of the men. They apologized a million times over as they ran away.

"Idiots…" I smirked. "Ginko?"

"Yeah?" He looked down at me.

"You can let go of my now," I said a bit awkwardly. He moved his hands away from me as if I was a hot coal.

"I'm sorry about that it was just my first thought, I couldn't think of any other way to keep you safe and I just- I just, well I mean that I…" as he kept rambling on I began to swim away. I had only known his for five days now, but I felt oddly close to the man.

"I won't kill you for protecting me," I smiled, "But, really, Ginko, honeymooning is going a little fast don't you think?" He opened his mouth to say something, but before he could, I swam away.

I looked back at him just to make sure that he wasn't looking, he wasn't. I hopped out of the water and soon had my clothes. He did the same and we were off again.

* * *

I realize this really isn't as long or as good as the other chapters and I apologize. My week has been crazy with exams and theater and instruments and I really wanted to get this chapter up. Rate and review if you have the time/patience. And thank you to the people who have reviewed~ LenenaxX and The Lonely Black Cat :)


	4. Hermit House

Before we left for good, we had to hastily retrieve all of our items from the room and inform the inn owner of our departure. After that we walked for hours… and hours. Since I hadn't really gotten the chance to brush out my hair, it curled into ringlets as it dried. Thankfully, there weren't very many mushi in this area of the forest, so neither of us lit either of our implements to keep them away. It was calming to smell the leaves, the grass, and the dirt instead of strong incense.

There were little mushi that ran around our feet, batting at our ankles every now and then. Some of them sat up in the trees, watching us from above and melding in and out of the vegetation. As I tend to become bored very easily, I began to kick some stray rocks that were here and there on the path and accidently hit a mushi here and there. I glanced up from the next rock I was about to kick to see another, larger mushi, in the middle of the path. It was just sitting there, staring at us.

It had to be the size and build of a small child, but it looked more like a blob with a primate/reptile mask. It was a little creepy looking to be honest, but I had nothing to fear. As soon as we were only about five feet away from it, I took a large step to the left to avoid stepping on it. Ginko simply stepped over the thing; I hadn't realized he had even seen it.

"That was weird," Ginko said as soon as we were a few feet away from it. I shrugged, tugging my pack higher onto my shoulders.

"Eh… the mushi are just weird in general. I guess that's what makes them so interesting though, huh?" I kicked another pebble; it hit a mushi with a box shaped head right in the neck. "Oops…"

"They would be a bit more interesting if you could stop abusing them with stones." I shrugged, but stopped kicking the rocks.

"Well then entertain me." I crossed my arms and closed my eyes.

"Entertain yourself," he didn't sound amused.

"I was."

"Entertain yourself in a different way."

"Why?"

"Because you've hit one of them with a rock and said 'oops' about thirty times in the past ten minutes."

"Don't you like hearing my voice, though?" I said sweetly.

"Not when you're saying the same thing over and over again, that's a bit annoying to be honest."

"Eh… that's true; but now that that's resolved how are you going to entertain me?" I faked utter shock and surprise.

"Do you ever stop?" He put a hand over his face.

"Not unless I don't have any energy or I'm not bored. I'm a wan-"

I tripped then. Had I been paying attention more, I would've noticed the hole in the walkway that was a foot deep and three feet wide. Almost instantly, pain blossomed in my ankle. Ginko chuckled and looked down at me.

"You should be more observant." I wasn't paying attention to his monotone voice, though. I was paying attention to my ankle might be broken.

"My ankle hurts," I said trying to stand up on one leg. "Help me," I stuck out my hands for him to take. He looked surprised, but dropped his box/bag and knelt down to help me up.

"Are you alright?" He asked as I limped out of the ditch. I tried to place my foot on the ground, but winced as soon as it touched the earth.

"No, my ankle hurts a lot." He just sighed.

"Sit down," Ginko lowered me to the ground and knelt next to me.

"It's just sprained, it isn't that serious…" I trailed off and glanced down at my foot. It was already starting to bruise and swell.

"I still have to wrap it," he said as he tugged some cloth out of his bag. He gently began to wind the fabric around my leg. He took something else out of his bag. It was a little round pellet. "Here, take this, it'll help with the pain." He offered me a smile.

"No."

"I'm just trying to help…"

"I don't trust you right now."

"Why don't you trust me?"

"You're smiling and it's really creepy." I poked him in the forehead, making him blink once. Then, he stood up helped me up.

He pulled his bag onto his shoulders again. We began walking, only now I was holding onto his arm with both of mine trying to keep my balance. My bag really weighed me down. Ginko must've have noticed, because he stopped walking and dragged the strap off of my shoulder. "There," he sounded bored, "is that better?" I nodded and let go of his arm.

We walked for maybe an hour more before I became too tired to go any farther. Ginko barely glanced at me before he spoke. "I'll set up camp," he muttered.

He had been cold to me ever since we started walking. I was surprised when I had managed to get him to argue with me. I couldn't figure out why though. It was about the time we left the inn, he became harsh. I realized that he was always a bit distant, but now it was worse than ever before. It bothered me for some reason.

Maybe he was just upset after what happened in the hot spring. I just tried to forget about it and not be awkward, which was admittedly a bit difficult. Every time I looked at Ginko I couldn't really stop thinking about him for a while. That bothered me too. I don't like getting attached to people that much, but I had already felt connected to him and we had only known each other for six days.

It wasn't like I really _liked_ Ginko. I mean I realized that he was attractive, and nice, and smart, and… _But! But, I don't like him. I don't! I really don't… do I? I just won't think about it._

He set up a fire and we ate our food in silence. "Why are you being like that?" I finally blurted out. I could hardly believe the words had come out of my mouth, but I tried to act confident.

"What do you mean?" The sun had gone down and it was dark now, but the fire illuminated his face in an oddly flattering way. I dragged myself with my arms and my one good leg so I was sitting right next to him. My face was close to his, but he wouldn't move his eyes from the fire.

"Have you just been thinking more or is something wrong?" I should've just kept my mouth shut.

"A little of both, I just…" he didn't finish.

"…you just? You've been quieter since we left the tavern." He finally glanced over at me, but quickly put his eye back on the fire.

"I don't know… I just… don't have anything to talk about." He shrugged. He shrugs too much, I decided.

"I'm not an idiot and I'm not helpless. AND," I said before he could interrupt me, "I know you didn't say I was either, but you're holding back something. I could care less if you tell me or not, but don't you dare ever think lowly of me just because I'm a girl. While we're on the subject, if you ever do anything that makes me seem **weak** I will hurt you." Okay, maybe at that point I was venting. It was a small possibility.

"Calm down, you're really quiet too sometimes." He finished his food and looked at me tiredly.

"W-well… sorry," I looked away from him and unclenched my warm fists. He was right, though. Sometimes I was as calm and collected and quiet as him, and sometimes I was fun and mindless and careless. But that's how I balanced myself. Sometimes I needed to be reserved and sometimes I needed to not care about anything, if I didn't do both I'd probably be gone at this point. I don't just mean dead either, _I_ would be gone. I surely would've gone insane had I never been me.

I sat back and stared at the fire for a while. Watching the ginger flames flick up and down, making little pictures every now and then. It was nice to sit and watch because it reminded me of when I was little. Our town would rarely have festivals, and even when we did they weren't too grand, but they always seemed exciting to me. I wasn't allowed to go to the festivals too much because none of the townspeople really liked me too much.

I laughed a little under my breath thinking about it. I began to think about all of the bad things that had happened to me. How men didn't respect me because I was woman. How mostly everyone thought I was a bit odd because of my hair and eyes and general appearance. They didn't see girls ever wear pants, which I did on occasion because they were simply more practical. As soon as I began to think, I changed my thoughts to good memories I had.

"Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to be normal. I wonder what it would be like if I had never been able to see the mushi or if I hadn't ever run away from my father or if mom didn't die. It sounds… boring." I sat hugging one knee to my chest and letting the other rest on the ground. "What do you think?" I leaned against his arm with my shoulder and looked up at him.

"I suppose, I'm not really sure what I would be had I not been able to become a Mushi Master." I rest my head against his shoulder for a moment before I crawled back to my blue bed roll.

"Me too," I yawned.

* * *

The next morning was a rush. My ankle still hurt, but it wasn't terrible anymore. I could carry my bag and walk without limping too much. Ginko had offered to take my bag again, but I refused his offer; I was strong enough. We began to talk about remedial things.

"Why were you in that town?" I asked studying a rock I had picked up.

"The people thought they had a mushi issue, but they were all just overreacting," he had begun to smoke already. I hadn't lit one of my incense sticks yet, though. "It was a pretty big town so it took me a while to realize there wasn't any actual danger."

"They did have a mushi problem, though. Granted it was at one of the houses on the outskirts of town, but I fixed it easily enough." I was lying. I mean there was a mushi and it was on the outskirts of the town, but I had drained myself when I had 'fought' with it. Oh well, what he didn't know wouldn't hurt him.

"Oh…" he didn't anything more. "You can close your second eyelid, right?" His question was a bit random, but I answered.

"Of course, but I only do if I absolutely have to; why?"

"I was just wondering," he looked at the trees to his right. We asked each other pointless questions to pass the time as we made our way to a small, abandoned house. It was an odd little thing. It was out in the middle of nowhere and no one lived in it. There were vines and other plants that grew up the sides of it and into the house. It had been there and that way since I began traveling on my own.

"What's this?" He asked as I stepped through the doors.

"It used to be a house… now it's just a house for hermits. We won't stay here because the village with the mushi is just a little bit away, but I need to take a rest.

* * *

**Wow. I apologize for how bad this chapter is. I had really bad writers block, I got distracted by a Supernatural marathon, an escaping hamster, and my 60 lb. puppy who likes to hit my hand away from my laptop while I type. Anyway thank you to anyone who even bothered to look at this story! **


	5. The Fear?

After resting in the hermit house for admittedly longer than needed, we headed off again. The village was only about twenty minutes away, so I lit a few incense sticks and Ginko began smoking. We were probably only fifty feet away from the edge of the town when something hit me. Not literally, but I got this really bad feeling. I felt like something bad was going to happen so strongly, my stomach began to ache a bit. I had never felt like this before. Ever.

Now let's pause for a minute. We've already cleared up that I am not a damsel in distress, I am not helpless, I'm not afraid of too much, I'm not really scared of dying, I am a Mushi _Master_, mushi are my life and I have absolutely no reason to fear them. But I was scared of this feeling that this mushi had created. It blanketed the town in fear, eating away at peoples' anxiety. Some days I wish I would've turned away from that town, but I suppose in the long run of things and for the good of those people it's a good thing I went there with Ginko.

"You felt that too, right?" I looked up at him as we passed through the gates to the village.

"The fear?" He walked up to a group of men that were speaking with one another in a tight circle.

"Yeah, it's all over this town." I jogged along behind him to keep up with his long stride.

"Excuse me," he tapped one of the med on the shoulder, "do you know where the boy who has markings on his stomach and used to wander off into the woods lives? We would like to speak to him." I stood next to him trying to look strong.

"Umm, yes," a man in the circle who was wearing brown and blue stepped towards us, "That's my son, but he's fine now. Why do you want to see him?" The three of us wandered away from the group.

"We need to speak to him about what happened. I'll go talk to him and Ginko, you can go see the person who's sick right now, okay?" I nudged Ginko back to the group of men to find out where the current invalid resided. "We're Mushi Master's, and we're here to help the people who've had the strange ailments in this town. I apologize if I seem like I'm intruding, but I need to speak to your son to learn everything I can about the mushi that may be infecting the people here. I will also need to see the markings on his abdomen, if he is comfortable with that."

The man sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. "He's had to tell so many doctors this story, I'm sure he isn't gonna' be too excited to repeat it again…" the man trailed off, but kept leading me to his house.

"I am not a doctor. I do know the basics of the medical profession, but that's not what I employ myself as. I am a Mushi Master, you know what the mushi are, correct?"

"My late wife was able to see them, but I never really understood them too much."

"Alright, well I believe that's what has been plaguing this town." We had reached the door.

"You may… examine him." I slipped of my sandals and walked into the dim house. The boy was sitting at the table, poking his food. He didn't look too much like his father, but they resembled each other a bit.

"Thank you," I smiled and walked up to the boy. He looked tired and glum. The boy must've been twelve or so. "Hello, I'm R, and I'm gonna' ask you some questions, okay?" The kid looked up at his father, not even bothering to look at me.

"I'm better, Pa, there's no reason to have a doctor see me anymore." It flashed through my head that he must blame himself for the death of the other villagers.

"Yuuto, come now, and she isn't a doctor she's a… a…" he looked at me for help.

"I'm a Mushi Master. I need to ask you some questions and look at your stomach so I can save whoever is infected right now and get that mushi somewhere else." I put my palms down on the table and stared into his light brown eyes. He looked surprised.

"Can… can you see the mushi? Ma could see them, couldn't she?" He looked at his Pa, almost worried. The older mans' smile was speckled with lines.

"Yes, she could." The boy looked back at me, excited now.

"Yeah, I can see 'em. But now I have to ask you some questions and look at you, alright?"

"Y-yes ma'am!" He stood up so fast the table nearly fell over.

"Do you have a room that's big and open?"

"Yup, right over here," he lead me into a beige room with almost nothing in it. I sat down, took off my bag, and started asking questions.

"Tell me what was happening, everything." He told me a detailed version of what I had heard, but one thing was different.

"… and I didn't remember anything except for seeing this _thing_." I looked up at him.

"What did this '_thing_' look like?" I put my chin on my fists

"It… it was a transparent, brownish ball. There were little specks of yellow in it and there was something inside of it that I couldn't see, because the ball wasn't clear enough." I nodded.

"Did you go anywhere you hadn't gone before a little while before it began?" He thought for a long time.

"I went into a part of the wood I hadn't ever been in before, but nothing really happened there that wasn't normal."

"What happened?"

He closed his eyes and put his hands on his head, trying to remember. His eyes opened wide, like saucers. "There was tree. It's about forty paces north pasted the edge of our land. It had these weird fruit on it near the top and I decided to climb up it to see what they were. When I made it to the top, one if the fruit fell onto my head and I nearly fell out of the tree. The fruit that had fallen opened up and little seeds went flying everywhere, I swallowed some of them." I nodded again, keeping my face straight.

"Lie down on your back and pull your shirt up." He obliged. The markings were an orange color, swirling into an unrecognizable kanji. I quickly scrawled what it looked like onto a piece of parchment I had and told him to sit back up.

"What happened right before you became better?"

"I got sick. My stomach got all upset because I ate some bad food and then I was better."

"Did you interact with the person who was infected after you in any way?"

"Yeah, she came to our house to see if I was okay. She tried to get me to drink this stuff, but it tasted gross so I spit it back into the cup and she went back to her house. That was right as I was really getting sick."

"Oh," I stood up and put my bag back on.

"Are you done with me?" I was halfway out of the room.

"Yep." He followed me to the door.

"Are you gonna' cure Hotaka-sama?!" I stopped, halfway out the front door, putting my shoes on.

"Maybe." I glanced back at him one last time.

So the only way to transfer it to someone was by ingesting the seeds. The only way to get rid of it was by retching them out. It seemed simple enough, but it probably wouldn't be. Now I just needed to find Ginko. After finding the group of men again, I had one of them tell me where the next person I needed to see was.

It only took a few minutes to find the place. I walked in to see a man sitting on the floor and Ginko packing up his box. The mans' brown hair was streaked with an unnatural gray and he looked sick. Ginko glanced up at the sound of me entering.

"Hello," I stood in the doorway. The older man looked over at me.

"Oh you must be R, his companion right?" The man was probably in his fifties, maybe sixties. I nodded as Ginko stood and walked towards me.

"Yup, that's me," I smiled at him. Hopefully if my idea of getting the man sick helped he wouldn't die of being sick.

"Goodbye, we'll be back in a little while." Ginko and I stepped out of the doorway and into the town that was slowly winding down for the night. "Did you get anything useful out of that kid?"

"Actually, I got everything." I paused before going on. "He accidently ate some seeds from a tree and only became better when he got sick and was throwing them up." I smiled in triumph.

"How'd the girl get sick, then?" We were walking toward the area where the tree was.

"The girl came over to feed the kid some kind of home remedy. The kid didn't like it and ended up throwing up a bit in her bowl. She must've brought it home, not washed it well enough, and ended up eating the seeds. He got better after that though." We were at the edge of the woods now.

"Are you bringing me to the tree?" He asked as I began counting my steps.

"Yup, and so all we need to do is get that old man sick, take his vomit and toss it next to this tree!" I smiled again, but my face was quickly transformed to one of disgust. "This is pretty gross actually." Ginko shrugged and we walked on in silence.

_Thirty, thirty one, thirty two, thirty three, thirty four, thirty five, thirty six, thirty seven…_

"Is this is?" He stopped me by grabbing my shoulder lightly with one hand. I took my eyes off of my feet and looked up.

"Put on a mask," I said pulling out my own kerchief and tying it around my nose and mouth. Ginko put his cigarette on the ground and tied one of his own around his head.

The little balls of 'fruit' that were draped on the tree here and there; they looked just as the boy had described. The tree was odd looking. It seemed whimsical almost. The branches were long, and droopy, and thin. The leaves that hung from it were such a bright green/yellow they stood out from all of the other shades of the forest.

"What did the marks on the boy look like?" He asked. Still staring up at the tree, I took the piece of parchment from one of my pockets and handed it to him. He stared at it for a long time before handing back to me. "I wish we could see the thing up closer." He thought out loud.

The tree looked fairly easy to climb. I was had always loved climbing trees at home and this wouldn't be too different from that.

"I'll get one." I looked at him while putting my hands on the bark.

"Be careful." He sat down.

"I'll be fine." I began to ascend the beast of a plant until I had finally made it to a place where I could sit down and pick a fruit from its branch. It took me a bit longer to get down than it had to get up, but when my feet hit the ground Ginko stood.

I held the thing in both of my palms, scared that it might pop open at any minute. Ginko stood opposite of me, studying it. He held his hands out. "Let me see it."

There didn't seem to be any mushi on the outside, so they must have been in it. "Careful," I dropped it into his hands as lightly as I could and pulled out a pair of gloves to slip over my hands. He lightly plopped onto the ground and I followed. He poked and prodded it, making my cringe each time.

"I'm going to open it." He said it so simply you would think he was talking about a door or a book. I watched him carefully as he tried various ways to get the thing open. I pulled a small knife out of my bag which I had originally bought for slicing fruit if I ever had the need to slice fruit. He looked up, a bit of surprise rested in his eyes when he saw me holding the sharp object, but he took it. Ginko held the fruit with one hand and with the other he placed the sharp edge in the flesh.


	6. Motoki

Nothing happened. He cut into the fruit easily, sliced it right in two down the middle. It didn't explode and not a single seed came ricocheting out of the thing. There were hundreds of little seeds lining the inside, tightly packed into the orange-yellow flesh. Ginko plucked two out with his gloved hand.

It was obvious that the seeds were mushi. There was no other answer, but it was interesting to up close. I watched him carefully, keeping my eyes on the fruit he was holding. His attention was on the seeds, and he was barely paying any mind to the two pieces in his hand. When he nearly dropped it in his inspection, I couldn't stand it anymore. I grabbed the two pieces from him as gently as I could. When our hands grazed I couldn't help but think back to what had happened in the spring.

Ginko looked up from the seeds and into my eyes. If I hadn't been wearing a mask he would have been able to see that my cheeks were light pink. My mind wandered places that I didn't always want it to go, I couldn't help it.

"This piece must have not been ripe enough to explode like the boy said, but this still helps."

"How so?" He took one of the slices back and touched my hand again. We stood up and walked closer to the tree.

"This seed is soft and kind of… squishy," he held up the first seed, "And this piece is rock hard. The soft ones are going to be easier to get out of people, but the hard ones will be a difficult."

"Oh," I didn't say anything more. "This tree must be some of kind of home for the mushi, huh?" It wasn't so much a question as a simple statement. I had seen many mushi trees before, but this one was a bit odd with its fruit.

I looked at the sun fading in the horizon. If that old man was infected that means that he would be walking out into the forest all alone and forgetting it the next day. Only if we weren't there that was. I placed my slice down next to the tree, leaning the side with the seeds on the bark.

"Ginko," I tugged on his sleeve, "We should go back to the village to watch that man." I said softly. Ginko looked as if he had been in deep thought and I hadn't wanted to startle him. He looked at me and set his slice down the same way.

"Yeah," he turned around. I put my hand on his shoulder as we began walking back.

"You're worried about something, it's obvious." I didn't look at him, but I could feel his him take a glance at me.

Admittedly, I was in an awkward position. Obviously, he was much taller than me, and putting my hand on his shoulder was not the most comfortable thing to do. "Other than the mushi being the old man, I'm not sure how healthy he is. I can't be certain if making him sick is a great idea." He shrugged, but I didn't move my hand.

"You didn't examine him?"

"He wouldn't let me," he turned his head so that when glanced up at him again, all my eyes were met with was a head of white hair.

"Why not?" My fingers tightened as I nearly tripped over a root sticking out of the ground. My other hand wrapped around his arm quickly to stop myself from falling. He looked down at me, surprised, once I had gained my balance again. We both stood there for few moments, just looking at each other. It was… weird, for a lack of better words.

"Sorry," I coughed, moved one of my hands away from him and began walking again.

"Anyway… he thought I was getting to 'touchy' with him."

I couldn't help but snort a little bit. "Well were you?" I nudged him, smirking.

He looked down at me, horrified. "No." His calm voice didn't match the slight look of panic in his eyes.

I chuckled again. "How didja' manage to convince him ya' weren't?" I moved my hand down to his elbow and nudged him again, this time I kept leaning on his arm.

"… I told him I had a… female traveling companion." I set my chin on his bicep and stared up at him, smiling like an idiot.

"Did you, now?" He looked away from me again.

"I did. What else was I supposed to tell him? Even when I talked about you he wouldn't let me take a look at him." Ginko grumbled under his breath.

"Good, hopefully you only told him the awful thing about me." I smiled again and kept leaning on him.

"I didn't really tell him anything about you." He shrugged and I let go of his arm. We had somehow managed to make it to the old mans' house during our conversation. "The man will let us stay here, but he only has one extra room."

I narrowed my eyes. "This happens too often," I pouted as we entered his house.

The man was sitting on the floor, smiling and drinking tea. He was singing an old tune to himself as he poured a small cup and brought it to his lips. Ginko tapped on the wall and smiled at the elder as he looked over at us.

It somehow surprised me how devious a wrinkled, old, man could look. His dark eyes didn't look like they had aged at all since he was a mischievous teen. "HELLO Ginko!" He hollered and waved, motioning us over to the low table. We sat down and the man poured us both cups of the tea.

"Hello…" I could tell he was going to say more, but the old man started speaking before he could.

"And you must be his lady-friend, right?" Both of the men's eyebrows raised the reason different and similar. I smiled, I liked this guy.

"I suppose you could say that," I smiled and sipped at the drink. I cannot describe how revolting the tea tasted. It was bitter and revolting. My face screwed up as I forced myself to swallow. Ginko raised an eyebrow at me and then at the old man. I set down the tea.

"I'm R, what's your name again?" I asked, watching Ginko sniff at his drink and set it down slowly.

"That's a funny name, a bit short if you ask me. I'm Motoki, and I doubt R is your real name, but carry on." He flashed us a crooked smile.

"Shockingly, you caught me. R isn't my given name, but it is the name you'll have to know me by in the time being." The man nodded, taking another sip of his tea.

"So… do you like that tea?" He asked, wiggling his eyebrows. I wasn't sure if he was playing a trick on us or if he really thought it tasted good. I was searching for words to describe the tea while Ginko spoke.

"It smells like your trying to poison us." He was an extremely blunt man. I stared at him, almost worried at what the old man would say, as he placed his chin in his hand, looking bored.

We all sat in silence, the old mans' face a deadpan. After an amount of time that was much more excruciating that it should have been, the man began laughing. He laughed so hard he nearly fell on his back. "Alright… alright…" he said between gasps for air. "You caught me… I made your tea taste awful." He burst out laughing again.

"It would have made it funnier had you two been nicer people and at least attempted to drink more than a sip." He comically glared at us, crossing his arms. I glared back, not quite as comically.

"You still need to be examined." Ginko said as the old man got over himself.

"I told ya', I'm not lettin' some stranger man, touch me up." It was amazing how childlike this guy was. It was annoying though, it was actually pretty funny.

"Well then I guess I will. Will it be okay if a woman examines you, just to see how healthy you are?"

"Well of course, but girly you can barely call yourself a woman. You're just over a decade old, aren't cha?" My smile didn't reach my aggravated eyes.

"I'm nineteen." I seethed.

"Oh… well that's good. I was a bit worried that he was aiming a little low… but then, that never really stopped me." The man looked proud of himself.

"We… we aren't like that, I just decided to travel with her to this town." Ginko looked even more annoyed.

Through a window at the other end of the room, I could see that it was nearly sundown. "Ginko," I looked at him, "Will you take my clothes and bed roll to the room?" I held them out from my bag.

"I'll show him where it is!" Motoki stood up from his spot on the floor and began walking away.

"Sure," he gently took the bags from me with his own box/bag slung over his shoulders and began walking with Motoki.

"Thanks, I'll have to dig around in my bag for some stuff while he's with you." I was speaking to myself more or less, but Ginko absentmindedly nodded anyhow. The two were out of my sight in a matter of seconds, Motoki's voice echoing off the thin walls while he talked Ginko's ear off.

"So…" Motoki spoke quietly now.

"Yes?" Ginko dropped my bags ungracefully on the floor and shrugged his own off his shoulders.

"C'mon lad, it's obvious you like the girl. When she's not lookin' at you you're starin' at her like you really like her." Ginko didn't turn to face the man yet.

"As soon as you're cured we're going our separate ways. We were simply traveling with each other until we made it here and cured you and figured out what was going on." Motoki could tell the boy was choosing his words carefully, but decided to press the matter.

"Did she ever say that she was just going to leave you as soon I was well?"

"Well, no, but-"

"Did you ever tell her that you like her, at the very least?"

"Wait, I don't, and we've only-"

"It doesn't matter what you think and it doesn't matter how long you've known her. I knew who the love of my life was the moment I laid eyes on her." He sounded genuinely proud of himself. "And before you ask if she was the most beautiful girl in town, the answer is no. She was actually a bit odd. I was fifteen when I first saw her, and I knew that was the girl I was going to marry when I got enough courage to. But I was afraid and didn't tell her until… until I was," he tried to recall the age, "twenty six. Sure I had my fun with some other girls, but I always regretted it.

"You on the other hand will just lose _her_ forever if you just try and ignore your feelings. You seem smart, hell you've got to be seeing as how you're a Mushi Master. So don't act like an idiot." Ginko stared at the ground, still not turning to face the man. The young man looked defeated; he was caving in on himself.

"I am a nomad, a wanderer. Wanderers don't fall in love, they don't get married." Motoki opened his mouth to say something more. He might've retaliated by saying that nobody said anything about marriage and love, but stopped at the last moment. He walked away without another word.

"What's taking so long?" I stretched out on my back, trying to memorize every detail about the ceiling. I rolled onto my stomach, staring at the hallway they had left through. Just as I went to sit up and crack my back and neck, Mo (as I decided to call him for short now) walked through. He didn't look very happy at all, and barely bothered to put on a fake smile when his eyes met my concerned face.

"Why do you have to examine me, anyway?" He sat down across from me, the table a few feet away to the left of us.

"Because if we want to make you better we have to make you sick, so we have to make sure you're okay enough right now to get sick." I said, checking his breathing and heart rate.

"I guess that isn't too weird, getting someone sick to make them better." He turned away from me as I placed hand in the middle of his shoulder blades and had him breathe deeply.

"We'll have to make your stomach sick to get the mushi out. You'll have to be careful where you… throw up." I said softly.

"You know he likes you a lot, right?" I pursed my lips. I was done examining him, but he didn't turn to face me yet.

"Who? And who would even bother to like me?" I tried acting ignorant, packing away my implements.

"You both like acting stupid, but if you must know it's Ginko who's in love with you." I swallowed, he couldn't possibly like me. He was just going to leave me as soon as we were done here and I would never see him again. Ever.

"He doesn't love me." My force, faked laugh didn't fool the man.

"Of course he does, and you love him." I chewed on my bottom lip, thinking of what to say next.

"How can you prove that he does… that he does like me, at all." I sounded much more pompous than I had meant to.

"I can't, but you two can. C'mon isn't there anything that happened where he at least showed that he was worried or cared about you?" I thought for a minute.

"… Yes, I suppose."

"Tell me," he turned to face me finally.

"Well, we were bathing in a hot spring one time," Mo looked suggestive, "Not like that! We were on opposite sides of this short wall of rock and didn't see each other like that." The look on his face didn't go away. "Anyway, there were these people who wanted to… kill me. They almost saw me, but he grabbed me and hid my face from the men." I smiled at the memory.

"There ya' go, there's your proof." I looked at him sadly.

"Ginko will have to be the one to prove it. And I doubt he will."

"SO YOU DO LIKE HIM?!" Oh dear, this man was like a thirteen-year-old girl.

"I **NEVER** SAID THAT." I blushed fiercely and stood up, walking as quickly as I could to the hallway. I would be able to find my way to the room fairly easily. Instead I ran right into Ginko. I barely looked at him and mumbled a simple apology as I stumbled to the room.

* * *

Mo was picking his things up from the table as Ginko entered. "What did you say to her?" He leaned on the frame of the door.

"It's was she admitted that's got her in a twist. She as good as said she like you… or maybe she said she loved you." He trailed off, standing up.

"She did?" The young man looked more hopeful than Mo had imagined he could have.

"She did… but she doesn't think that you could ever even be bothered to like her in the slightest. You should change that, you know." Mo walked away to put his things away.

"She didn't say that and you're a liar." Ginko called after him, he had heard the majority of the conversation, and even though it might've raised his hopes, he wasn't convinced.

* * *

"We'll have to take turns watching him tonight. I'll take the first watch, alright." Ginko hadn't said a word to me since he walked back into the room. He didn't even look at me. It… bothered me.

"Ok," he rolled over in his bed and turned even further away from me. I breathed in and out through my teeth. I stood and was nearly out of the door before I stopped to look at his back.

I huffed. He was being… childish. He was acting like an idiot. I… it, he just made me mad for some reason. "Have you figured out how you are going to get him sick?" I asked curtly.

"I have a medicine that we can give him tomorrow, it's too late tonight." I stood still, not moving an inch. "Well aren't you going to go watch him? Don't just stand there."

My mouth gaped open a bit, slightly mortified at how rude he was being. I didn't say anything as I stormed out. Tears welled up in my eyes for a slip second before I blinked them back. I hadn't cried since… since my mother had died, and I wasn't about to let some jerk make me.

I'll be honest with you though. I think at that point I knew that I liked Ginko, a lot. Maybe I even loved him then, and I silently admitted it to myself. I never even thought of saying it to him though, especially after how he was acting at the moment.

I found Mo's room quickly and easily. All I had to do was listen to the sound of his singing and follow it. He was closing his eyes as I entered and sat down. "Thank you," I heard him murmur as his eyes closed and he fell to sleep.

* * *

**Well that was interesting. I absolutely love how Motoki turned out! At first I was going to make him a sweet, old man without very much depth, but look what happened! It probably took me longer to make his character profile than it did for Ruri or any other of my own characters in this particular story. Also, I apologize if Ginko is acting a little OOC. He'll be back to his normal self in a little bit, he just needed to act this way for now because of what's going on. Another thing before I go, do you guys want character profiles at the end bit here. I would only do one every now and then, but I think I might next chapter or the one after that. Tell me watcha' think.**


	7. Bad Dreams vs Nightmares

Motoki was gone. A few hours into my watch, as soon as I was going to get Ginko and tell him it was his time to watch, the old man's body flickered once. Twice. And then he was gone. He had been in deep sleep when it happened. I momentarily panicked before I realized where he would be and what needed to be done.

I ran as swiftly as I could to the beige guestroom where I found Ginko just waking up. "Ruri," he stretched, "what happened?" He said taking in my expression.

"My name isn't Ruri!" I took a breath. "And Motoki is gone." Ginko stood and slipped on his trench coat hurriedly.

"Dammit, you let him get away?" His soft yell made me cringe as we ran to the door.

"No! He… he just disappeared. His body it just flickered and vanished. He'll probably be at…" I stopped to inhale while we were running.

"…He'll be at the tree!"

The only sound in the quiet town was our footsteps echoing off the dirt and thunder from an oncoming storm. It seemed to take hours to make it to the damned tree before we finally stopped, both of us panting for air. We were only fifteen feet away from the tree. We were only fifteen feet away from Motoki.

He wasn't himself anymore. He was clawing and grabbing at the tree, eating like an animal when caught a fruit in his hands. It was revolting, but I needed to stop him. He would only get worse if he kept on doing this. I leaned forward, ready to run to him. Two arms wrapped around me.

One arm was on my waist and the other across my collar bone, nearly touching my neck. "You can't go!" Ginko's whisper was hoarse; he hadn't quite caught his breath yet. "He'll hurt you and we need to watch him. We'll get him sick tomorrow, but for now let him be."

I struggled against his vice grip, but I was too weak. "Please!" I whispered, trying to look up at him. The man wasn't even brave enough to meet my gaze. I exhaled loudly and stopped squirming.

His grip on me loosened, but only by a fraction. I still had no chance of getting out of his arms. I was cold and tired, and being constrained by Ginko of all people was not at the top of my 'To-Do' List.

After a while, I relaxed into his grip and leaned against his chest. "Wh-what are doing?"

"I stayed up for first watch and now I'm tired. And you haven't let me go." I added on as an afterthought.

"You'll do something stupid if I let you go."

"No I won't," I muttered sleepily.

"You're lying." I probably was, actually. "You're a good liar, but I can tell when you are."

"Oh," I said leaning my head against him, "Well at least sit on the ground so I can fall asleep like a semi-normal human being."

"Fine," he grumbled and lowered us to the ground as slowly as possible. I was pressed even closer to him, but instead of bothering to be awkward I just curled up against him, trying to take in his warmth. I might have been blushing. I don't remember. Alright, fine, I was blushing, but that doesn't have very much to do with our story so let's get on with it.

I could hear his heart beat through the thin fabric of his shirt. The calm breathes that he took. I was an idiot for admitting it to myself, but I really did like him. Motoki was wrong though, Ginko wouldn't ever. Sometimes I would get my hopes up, but it was all very ignorant and childlike… wasn't it?

I laughed at myself quietly enough so that I thought he couldn't hear. "What?" I could feel his voice.

My eyes closed most of the way. "Nothing…" I automatically answered.

He breathed in like he was going to say something more, but stopped at the last second. Minutes passed, half an hour, and then maybe forty five minutes. I wasn't tired at all, I couldn't fall asleep anyway. I sighed silently.

"Are you still awake?" Ginko asked close to hour after I had supposedly gone to sleep. He still had his arms wrapped around me; it was comforting for some reason.

"Yeah," I yawned fighting the urge to stretch. It was getting closer to dawn, but the sun wasn't very close to rising. Motoki was getting slower and slower as he lost the energy to be a savage.

"Motoki… spoke to you, correct?" My eyes widened a little bit. I was not going down this road right now.

"I believe he spoke with both of us on numerous occasions in the small time we were at his house." And I was playing dumb.

"Don't do that…" he trailed off and tightened his grip on me so much it began to hurt. I looked down at his hands. There wasn't anything there. No one was holding my. Then there was blackness, a smoke, which wrapped itself around my arms and legs, my neck. I felt suffocated. I screamed, but no sound came out.

"R! R!" Someone was screaming my name. I couldn't tell who, but the sound and feel of their voice was calming and familiar. My eyes shot open and my body shot straight up.

My head hit something. I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes and sat up, rubbing at the throbbing pain in my head. I looked to my side where Ginko was rubbing his own head. It had been a dream, that's all.

But now I was sitting next to the very really and hurt Ginko. "What the hell?" He moaned dragging his hand over his entire face.

"Oh! I'm sorry, I'm so sorry!" I almost yelled kneeling next to him and moving his hand away from his face. "I guess I was having a bad…" I trailed off as I looked around, we were back in Motoki's house. "…dream. Why are we here?"

He shrugged me off. "You fell asleep and he stopped and began to walk back to his house, so I just carried you here and then the old man walked in on his own… perfectly fine."

"Oh… thanks. At least let me see your head," I moved his hands away from his head. I studied the bump forming on his head. "Stay here, I'll go get a damp cloth!" I yelled as I scurried out.

Motoki was standing at the end of the hall, carrying a tray. "Oh, you're awake. We were afraid you might have a fever, well Ginko was, so I brought you a towel and bowl of water, but I guess that's useless now." It was a bit too convenient, but, hey, I accept what I get.

My high pitched and quiet sneeze sounded loud in the quiet house. Sometimes I was told I sounded like a small cat when I sneezed, it was embarrassing. Maybe I was sick, or maybe it was the insane amount of dust in this place. He was still sitting in the middle of the floor, looking bored. I dropped to my knees in front of him and moved my hand to his hair. The hair that fell in front of his face covered the bump on his forehead.

I brushed it out of the way to reveal his other eye. The eyelid was closed as soon as that part of his face was revealed. I dipped the rag into the water and rung it out quickly. "Lay down, I don't want to get the water all over your face." After taking a long glance at me, he obliged.

We talked about remedial things for a few minutes. Not really talking about anything in particular. He complained I was being too harsh on his head and I messed with him further. Then Mo walked by. Without either of us noticing, he stood there for a long time just watching us.

"What the point of the both of you if ya' won't even kiss?!" He sounded exasperated. We both stared up at him in shock. I was sitting on the floor now, legs crossed. He stayed in the doorway for a few more seconds before rolling his eyes and walking away.

"Sorry," we said in unison. I snapped my head to look at Ginko again and sigh.

"I'll go now," I went to stand, but he stopped me by grabbing my wrist. I hadn't realized how small I was compared to him before then. His thumb and middle finger easily overlapped around my wrist.

"Wait," he looked down at his hand, "Sorry, just wait a second." I nodded and plopped onto the floor again.

"Yes?" He pulled away from my hand as soon as I spoke.

"Motoki talked to you about me, didn't he? He talked to me about you."

I dug my fingernails into my hand until it hurt, making sure this wasn't a dream. It wasn't.

Weirdly enough, what he had just said sounded too vague for his normal, blunt self. "Did you poison him, yet?" I asked, not bother with his question yet. He looked a little annoyed, but answered me.

"Yes, as soon as we arrived. The two of us were eating breakfast and he said it was fine to give him the… poison." As I stood Ginko sat up.

"… And, yes," I finally said, "He… yeah, he did."

I walked out of the room as fast as I could. Mo was sitting, eating from a platter in the middle of the floor at the same small table from yesterday. I sat down across from him, dejectedly. He looked up from his noodles and offered me I bowl. Since it had been a while since I had eaten I took them.

"Aren't you just going to be sick in a little while?" I smiled half-heartedly. He stuffed another mouthful of noodles into his face just to make a point.

"I might as well eat good while I'm healthy." He smirked. He put down his bowl and looked at me as I put down my own, now empty, bowl. "What's wrong, girly?"

I looked down at my hands for a long time before looking back up at his sweet, wrinkled face. "You know," I kept my voice low, "You know that you were right… partially. You were… you…" I swallowed, "You were rightaboutme. Having… f-feelings," I choked out the word, "for him. But, you weren't right about him. And anyway it doesn't matter, does it?" I said the last part as a statement, it wasn't a question.

For once, Motoki looked very serious. I stared back down at my hands. They were resting on the table now, not really knowing what to do with each other. "And you're wrong, partially," he said. "And it does matter; it matters to you… doesn't it?"

"I suppose… but, I just-"

"If you two don't sort this out by the time you fix me, I will not die a happy old man. Do you understand me?" I couldn't help but smile and laugh a little. I wished that my own father had been like this.

"I understand you perfectly, sir." I stood, carrying the empty dishes to a fountain behind the house. Since there wasn't much left to clean it didn't take too much time for me to finish the job. When I turned, I realized I hadn't heard as Ginko had walked out into the yard. He was a few feet away from me.

"Yes?" I set down the silverware and put my hands on my hips, looking up at him. A shadow covered half of his face. It was noon now, and the sun was blazing so hotly that I was wearing only my loose tank top and light, baggy pant that cinched at my waist and ankles.

* * *

**Yes, well, that was interesting and fun. That was actually kind of a cliffhanger surprising, I know. Well I kind of feel like writing my profile for Ruri (sorry, R) now so... here ya' go!**

**Name: Ruri (wow that was difficult)**

**Age: 19**

**Height: 5' 2''**

**Weight: 121 lb.**

**Hair: Black and White**

**Eyes: Blue-Green**

**That was actually pretty lame... Sue me I'm bored. That was by far not as detailed as I wrote her original one, but I do not want to type anymore today, so bye! Rate if you have the time if you like.**


	8. Tall Grass

I suppose what happens next would make more sense if I really cleared a few things up. You see, when you become a Mushi Master it's…it's kind of like becoming a monk. Sure, you can sexual relations to your hearts' desire, it isn't a chastity vow. A lot of Mushi Master's don't get married or fall in love really because people are scared of us.

I would guess another reason is the amount of mushi drawn to us. You can't just put a perfectly normal person, who you love, in that situation without some regret. And, yes, I had some feelings for Ginko. The thing was I wasn't sure of them.

I had my hopes up that he had some feelings for me, just a few or a little. I never actually expected him to, that just seemed stupid. It seemed really stupid. I felt like the lonely, poor girl in the village who had fallen for the rich, well respected boy; or the other way around. It was hopeless. It was rare and probably not likely to happen.

* * *

The wind made everything bend. The grass, some of the young trees, the leaves and branches on older trees swayed in the warm breeze. I dropped my arms down by my sides, tracing little patterns on my fingers with my thumbnails.

He wouldn't look at me. It just added to the long list of things that he did that made me feel bothered. Another thing to add to that list; I didn't like that list. It bothered me that he could make me feel bothered.

"You told Motoki where he could… regurgitate, right?" I broke the silence with my simple question.

"Of course, he's just become sick so I'd rather stay out here than in there." He shrugged, finally making a little eye contact with me. I nodded a few times, lowering my eyes to the grass.

"Why did you just run off like that?" The few birds and crickets that had been chirping stopped abruptly at his voice.

"When? Do you mean back in the room?" I asked cautiously.

"Yeah…wh…." He seemed like he was going to say more before he stopped himself.

"I left because I was hungry and wanted to see how Motoki was doing," I lied. I hadn't brought my eyes up to meet his again, but I was sure that if I did I wouldn't have been able to lie anymore.

He caught on, surprisingly. "Are you lying or do always do nervous thing with your hands that I just don't notice." He was smiling... or smirking.

When I looked up at him, his face was far from smiling. He looked a bit frustrated, maybe confused. The look didn't suit his face very well in my opinion.

"How long will it take for Mo to get this entirely out of him?" I'm not sure if I was intentionally changing the subject or not. It was probably intentional.

"Don't change to topic, are you nervous?" I heard fabric ruffle as he shoved his hands into his pockets.

"…Yes." He was going to ask me more questions, I could just tell.

"Why?" The defensive part of me wanted to ask if was really any of his business, but it was so that excuse wouldn't work this time.

"….Because." I shoved my hands into my own deep pockets.

"Answer me."

Why was this so difficult?

"Because….you're here." I finally choked out.

"Why do I make you nervous?" I tore my eyes up to look at him. He had already been staring at me with his single eye. He probably had since I looked down.

My expression was probably a mixture of sadness and pity. Was he ignorant or just saying all of this? I pulled my eyes away to nearly roll them.

"Guess." I said quietly.

"Rur- _R_, just say it. If I did so-"

"Just," I stopped him and looked into his eye again, half smiling, "guess, please. You're smart, Ginko, just take a few guesses….please." I was begging him to now.

He sighed, sounding a little disappointed. "Alright…is it because I'm so much bigger and taller than you, and you're scared I'll hurt you because I can?"

I snorted. Even though I was small, I was quick and surprisingly strong. I knew some pressure points that could make people do my bidding if needed.

"Not even close, I will end you before you could even touch me if you were trying to hurt me." I smirked for a second, but my face was solemn again.

I was acting like a child and I knew it. It was fun though. When I was kid I never really got to act to like one. I never had crushes. I never got to like a boy. Hell, I never really had any friends. I wanted to act like a kid for once. I needed to act like a child. I felt like I couldn't help it.

"…Do you- is it… does it…." I looked at him encouragingly. "Were you being honest with Motoki when you last spoke with him?" I widened my eyes and mouths, sucking in a silent breath.

I opened and closed my mouth like a fish. He had been listening to us? Well how much had he heard? Wait, he was spying on us. Maybe he had just walked out to see if I was alright when I walked away. Still… he had been listening to us.

"Yes." I could tell I looked panicked as I stared into his eye, searching for any kind of sign to what was going to happen next.

"So you were being truthful with him?"

"Y-yes." It sounded like a question in my scared voice. My hands were shaking and my jaw was nearly there as well.

"You don't sound sure of yourself." He was just trying to push me now.

"Yes, I-I… I was."

"Why are you nervous?" He asked the question again. To be honest, I wasn't sure. Maybe it was because I had finally admitted it to someone. That, in turn, meant that I had admitted it to myself. I wasn't sure about anything.

Did that mean that I had just admitted it to Ginko as well? He said he heard us. I didn't know if he heard everything or just a little. By the way he was talking he seemed to know at least most of what had happened.

He didn't say anything of what had transpired between Mo and I. Maybe he didn't know. But if he didn't know why would he bring anything up at all. He would be smart enough to just ask questions.

My mind was going a million miles in seconds. I couldn't think of what to say. I became lost in my own thoughts. I tried to remmeber everything from our current conversation. I thought back to both of my conversations with Mo. Exactly what did I say both of those times. I couldn't remember anything it seemed. I knew what had happened, and perhaps had I not been panicked I would have been less cloudyminded.

"You're here and you know why if you were listening to us!" I rushed it all out. I gasped at how loud my voice was. "Sorry, I didn't mean to yell. I just needed…I…um, oh… I-I don't know."

He turned to walk away slowly. He looked at me once before stepping away. I followed him.

"Where are we going?" I finally asked.

He was walking towards the middle of yard right in the middle of the tall grass. I had nearly had to jog to caught up to him. When he stopped suddenly I smacked into his back. He turned almost immediately.

"Are you alright?" He stooped down and placed his hands on my shoulders. I blush crept to my face at his touch. There was a strange feeling in the pit of my stomach at the closeness of his face.

I swallowed again. "I'm fine."

At the sound of my voice, he ripped his hands away from me. I looked down at my feet for a moment and then back up at him.

"Why did you walk out here?"

"I'm not sure."

"Oh…"

"Why did you follow me?"

"We were still in the middle of a conversation."

"Oh…" He said it like he had forgotten about what had just happened.

He sat on the ground, never taking his eye off of me. I followed after a short amount of time and plopped to the ground as gracefully as one could plop.

I shivered as another, cooler, breeze washed over me. He watched me, slightly inerested. He looked as if he was going to say something, but stopped before his mouth could open.

"Ginko?" I laid down next to him and stared at the greying sky. He copied me.

"Yeah?" He asked.

"Can I look at where your other eye used to be?" It took a while to word the sentence correctly. I propped myself up on one elbow so I could see his face. It took him so long to answer I was afraid of what the response would be.

"I guess," he looked a little shocked. I leaned farther over his head, moving his hair out of the way the same time he did. A small shock attacked my fingers when we touched.

His eye was open. There was nothing. It was empty. There was only blackness and nothing more. I smiled sadly at him. This could have easily been my fate. I wasn't sure if he knew the full extent of the damage of his body, and I wasn't going to be the one to tell him. Not yet at least.

I hadn't realized my hand ad moved to loosely cup his face until he put his hand over mine. His hair fell over his eyes again and I averted my gaze to his working eye. He sat up so quickly, I had to move so we weren't terribly close.

"Ginko…" I didn't have anything to say.

"Ruri," for once my name did annoy me, "just stay still, okay."

He put his hands on my shoulders and gripped them so much so that it nearly barely hurt. "Close your eyes…please." His voice was strained, like he wasn't certain. I wasn't certain of what he was doing either, but obliged and shut my eyes.

I could feel his breath graze my face. I thought I had seen it coming. I though I was prepared for this, but I wasn't.

He kissed me.

His lips lightly touched the corner of mine.

I couldn't do anything but sit there, struggling to keep to my eyes closed. It ended as quickly as it had started. My eyes shot open the moment he pulled away. He looked just as surprised, if not moreso.

I couldn't piece together any of my thoughts. I didn't know what to do. I couldn't speak.

Ginko stood.

He muttered something. I think he said sorry. I didn't know why.

Then, he walked away.


	9. Running Away

I sat in that field of grass for a long time; a very, very long time.

The sun had fallen long ago; it was replaced by a large glowing moon and a million like specks of light in the sky. In hindsight, I was being a bit slow.

He had kissed me. Except, he walked away as soon as it happened without so much as real apology. If he had wanted to mess with my emotions he would've done it for longer wouldn't he have? And wouldn't he be a bit smugger about the situation, not awkward and disheartened.

It confused me. So I sat. I stayed sitting, not changing position until I felt pins and needles strike one of my legs. I was tired then and went to stand. My left leg nearly gave out from under me as I walked back to the house. I was sort of in a daze.

It wasn't completely because of the kiss; my tiredness had to do with it as well.

I stumbled into our room, my eyes were half shut already. Ginko wasn't in the room and I could hear Motoki retching somewhere in the house if I listened closely enough. I fell to my knees on my bed roll, my head had barely hit the pillow before my eyes fell and I couldn't open them again.

When I awoke the next morning the first thing I realized was that it was late in the morning. As my mind raced I remembered Ginko. It must've have just been a stupid dream that I-

Motoki skulked into the room looking well. He stopped dead in his tracks and stared at me. For some reason he looked surprised and confused. His wrinkled face scrunched up even more than it was. I yawned and stretched, cracking my back and neck. I didn't know what the issue was.

Ginko wasn't in the room. He must have been out somewhere else or in the town maybe. My mind raced back to what had happened the night before. It was just a dream. That's all it was, it couldn't be anything more but a dream.

"Why are you still here?" Motoki plopped onto the floor with a loud thud and crossed his legs.

I faced him, doing the same. "Well I was going to leave this morning, but I guess I slept in," I yawned again. "Where's Ginko?"

"He stormed in here real late last night, looked mad and was mutterin' to himself. Damn boy kept me upping all through the night, 'til he said he was leaving sometime around dawn. I figured you were leaving with him…" he rested his chin in his palm, "…guess I was wrong," he sighed.

Wait. It had happened. Ginko had really k-kissed me last night. I could feel the excitement bubble up in my stomach and chest. It went down as quickly as it came up. He had left. He had just left me all alone without saying a word. Granted, I did that to people that I helped with the mushi all the time, but that was different. I didn't kiss any of them.

"He… he just left?" I barely covered the crack in my words.

"Yup," he rested his hands on his knees. "What happened, child?"

* * *

**I have not posted in a while and for good reason. I've had a ton of standardized testing over the past few days and along with my birthday (it was on Wednesday and I'm going to NYC next Thursday to celebrate it) I've been distracted. I will update this chapter when I get the time, but that might be in a while. I'm going to be putting together a Shakespeare in the Park sort of thing for my community theatre and I need to do TONS of research, finding scenes, finding people to do it, directing, etc. Our theatre has never really done this before, so we're just doing a few popular scenes (Balcony Scene, to be or not to be, Lady Macbeths' monologue, Iago being evil, etc.) and if you guys want to suggest any other popular scenes that you think are touching or funny you can tell me in the reviews if you want! Thanks! **


	10. Running Away Cont

**So this just picks up from the last chapter just in case there's any confusion...though I doubt there will be...just saying...**

* * *

"He kissed me." I didn't think the answer would come out as swiftly as I had imagined, but it did. Before Mo could say another word, I stood. "You are well and I need to be on my way." I jogged to the room, packed my things and made my way for the door. Now I was about to leave the poor, lonely, old man to himself.

"R…" he said it with sympathy not pity, like a father consoling his daughter. But then, I wasn't too sure what that tone would sound like. "You're going to visit me before I die, I hope the two of you do. And I… I'm going to tell you about my late wife and maybe our kids and grandkids if I get the time. You understand that young lady." He wasn't asking a question, but there was a kind of dull hope in his voice, like he didn't expect me to come back. I probably wouldn't.

I bolted out of his door as quickly as I could with the heavy, lead-like bag strapped on my shoulders. I was going to tell the boy everything about his past illness, and how I had cured Mo, but now I couldn't. I just couldn't bring myself to do anything but run away now.

I ran for a month. I made few stops at villages for supplies. I attempted to help a village with a mushi problem they had, but I was chased away. They said a Mushi Master, a man, was coming to their aid soon and they didn't need my help. I left without arguing too much. I had lost my purpose. I felt lonely again.

After spending a little over a week with just one person I had become used to companionship. Now, I was all alone. Abandoned. Forgotten. I wandered, never really asking anyone for anything weird going on. Not bothering to ask if there was a child or anyone around born with an odd sort of gift.

I was getting better. I was becoming my old self again. Used to being all alone and completely fine with just the sounds of nature to comfort me every day.

But I was still confused about things. Mainly about if Ginko had really liked me. He had been the one who had kissed me. I was just confused. So I walked and I ran away. But I figured out pretty quickly it's hard to run away from feelings. I know that sounded serious and sappy for me, but, hey, it's true.

Finally, after nearly two months of wandering aimlessly, I finally became myself again. I hadn't forgotten about Ginko, not by a long shot, but I pitied myself less frequently about what he had done.

I had somehow made it to the coast in my dazed traveling. It seemed like a nice enough small town, so I entered. After speaking to some fishermen on the outskirts who were travelling out to sell their catch told me to go see the doctor of the town, I hurried further into the town. It was calm here; it slightly reminded me of the town with Mo and the boy (I couldn't remember his name now).

I knocked on the thin door loudly.

"I'm coming!" Someone called, only a little bit away from the door. I was surprised that he sounded so young.

The doctor swung open the door. He looked like most with dark hair/skin/eyes and a clean shaven face. He had a glass monocle that nearly hid how tired he looked. He was wearing a loose, black kimono. The man rubbed his eye and looked at me again doing a double-take.

It was my hair and eyes.

"Hello!" I said brightly. "I'm R, I'm a Mushi Master. Some men told me to come here, that you'd be interested in meeting me." I smiled and hiked my bag higher onto my shoulders.

"Of course," he was over his initial shock, "I'm Adashino, come in and sit down. I do have a friend over, but he probably won't be too much trouble. He's up in my loft right now looking through some old scrolls." I nodded and sat, facing the man. He didn't look too much older than me.

"How old are you, you look so young?" I rolled my shoulders, letting the tension melt away.

"Are you trying to find out if our age difference would be too much when you imagine marrying me?" He asked seriously. I shrugged and played along.

"Maybe…" I joked as he went on.

"I'm twenty five," he smiled kindly, "Now I feel kind of bad that you'll have to meet my friend. He has an awful sense of humor. And he thinks I'm the biggest idiot on the seaside." Adashino made a sour face.

I chuckled lightly and let my eyes wander around his small room. You could spot supernatural memorabilia everywhere if you had the right eye for it. Some of this stuff wasn't the safest to just have lying around.

"Well that's too bad," I absentmindedly replied to him, "You seem smart enough… except for keeping that." I pointed one object in his collection. "You should probably get rid of it…" I trailed off as he whipped his head, comically, to the wall.

"Oh… yeah, he said that I should get rid of it too. I probably should, considering bad things tend to happen when I don't follow what a Mushi Master tells me to do. And I usually don't do things. But… for such a pretty one, like you, I guess I could take care of that by sunset." I crookedly smiled at him and shook my head. He began showing off his various oddities he had lying around.

I turned my head when I heard a creak from the later.

"Are you trying to seduce anoth-"

It was Ginko.

He stopped talking as soon as he saw me. I couldn't tear my eyes away from him.

"Ruri." He spoke first. His low voice made my breath catch in my throat. I quickly regained my composure.

"Ginko." I crossed my arms.

"What are you doing here?" He asked calmly through his cigarette.

"I wandered here," I said dropping my arms.

"You two know each other?" Adashino tried to break the silence. I shrugged, but Ginko spoke.

"We met while we were travelling and we cured a town of its mushi problem and then left and went separate ways."

"I remember it a bit differently," I scoffed. Ginko didn't speak. "How I recall it is that you left in the middle of the night without telling me after you k…" I didn't go on with the other man standing there.

My hand reached into my pocket, remembering something. Ginko had left something. Well, I figured that he had probably dropped it, but I had picked it up and brought it with me. It was a piece of leather string with nothing on it. It was tied at one end like a necklace, and it looked like there had been something on it because it was all worn at one part of it. I couldn't let go of it with the small hope that I might meet him again.

The cord warmed in my hand for a few second of silence.

"Y-you left this." I stuck my arm out to him stiffly. He looked confused for a moment, and then shocked and grateful.

"Thanks," he easily took it from me, our fingers brushed up against each other's. I cringed at feeling his skin.

Something fell below us as Ginko put the string into his pocket. I jumped and he ran down a set of steep stairs that were hidden by shadows.

"I'll get it!" he yelled, already halfway down the steps.

Adashino and I stood in mild silence for only a short while.

"Well… will you at least tell me what happened?"

"It doesn't really matter. A kiss isn't that big of a deal anyway, I suppose." I slapped my hand over my and widened my eyes, slowly tearing them over to the man. He looked more surprised than me. I stuttered, trying to come up with any kind of valid excuse that would make up for my slip of words.

He raised an eyebrow at me finally. "You kissed him?" It was too late anyway.

I crossed my arms. "He kissed me…" I bit at the inside of my bottom lip, "And then he left sometime in the middle of the night without telling me. It wasn't the big of a deal…" I trailed off.

"Something else happened, didn't it? But… it happened earlier, huh?" I swallowed. He might be young and seemingly stupid at times, but he could be smart.

"Yeah… I guess…"

"What happened?"

"We were in this hot spring bathing on opposite sides, there was a little rock wall that separated us and there were these people that wanted to get me and he hid me from them and it was really awkward and nice and sweet and terrible." I took a shaky breath in trying to regain my breath and stop myself from crying.

I couldn't understand how I could be crying now. I hadn't even cried when Ginko had left me.

"Oh… he's really not the brightest when it comes to emotional things like this, so you've got to cut him some slack. But that was pretty dumb wasn't it? Ha! Now I've got something to hold over him! You're going to have to be the one who fixes this, and you're going to have to talk to him." I smiled a little, about to say something else when we heard footsteps coming up the stairs and someone came running into the house yelling for the doctor.

"Sorry, I've got to go." He ran out with the little girl as Ginko stepped into the room. How was I supposed to fix this? I didn't even know what there was to fix in the first place.

"Ginko?" My face looked worried and confused and panicked at the same time.

"…Yes?" He chose the one word he spoke carefully.

"Do you like me as more than a friend? Because after you left I couldn't stop thinking about you and I really do like you and I'm sorry I know you don't, just answer me." The mask of confused panic wouldn't leave.

You could hear a cricket chirp miles away.

Then, he started laughing. He chuckled, he just… chuckled. I looked up at him, my mouth like a fish trying to form words. He stopped laughing and went quickly went back to being serious.

"I've never seen you like this before. You're not like yourself at all. But to-"

"Damn it! I haven't seen you for a more than a month and I asked you a simple question, and you just go off on tangent when I just want to know one thing and sorry that I'm yelling, but-"

He grabbed me into a tight hug and cut me off.

"I like you…a lot, are you happy?" He scoffed. "You're just as annoying as I remember," the man muttered under his breath. I pushed myself away from him. Had he not just said something that had made me happy I might've slapped him. I wasn't sure if Motoki or Adashino had said anything about being daring, but I knew that I had to be right now.

I grabbed his shirt and pulled him towards me. I had no idea what I was doing, I'll say that much. But, surprisingly, he leaned down to catch me halfway. I wrapped my arms around his neck loosely as he pulled me closer into him. His hands tightened around my waist as I intertwined my fingers into his hair.

The kiss wasn't perfect as most all things were, but it was nice. It only lasted a few seconds before we pulled away from each other and he embraced me again.


	11. The Calm

We stood in the same place for a while not saying anything at all. I was happy now, but I knew that this couldn't be a normal relationship. For a split second I thought of simply leaving Ginko and never seeing him again, like he had done to me, but I knew I could never do anything like that now. I thought about how funny it was. When I was a small girl I detested the thought of relationships and I had for a very long time up until now. I still gagged at the sight of people hugging and kissing. It all seemed so unimportant and unnecessary, but it was all making some amount of sense now that I was in his arms.

I know that sounded fluffy and romantic, but I can't think of better words. We must have been an odd sight to see. A very tall man with white hair and one unearthly green eye and a very short girl with short, black and white hair and blue-green eyes to match; I guess we really weren't too typical of a pair.

I imagined if I had never found him again. I wouldn't ever forget about him, but I wouldn't constantly mourn over him. I would have been happy with the time I spent and I might regret that night a few times, but overall I would be happy again. It would've became better over time. It wasn't as if I was in love with him then, and didn't think I really was right now. I had only known him for a month and even though some people fall in love at the first sight, I didn't think I was like that. Or maybe I hadn't realized I was in love with him yet.

No, I would have realized. I wasn't sure of it, but lying to myself right now was okay.

It was obvious that my mind was jumbled and I needed to sleep. So somehow, as my mind was racing a million miles an hour thinking of everything under the sun, I dozed off into his shirt. I was half-asleep by the time he realized.

"Ruri," he spoke my name softly. "Are you asleep?" He sounded exasperated, a little annoyed.

I could hear him, but I didn't feel like talking. I quietly grunted, hoping he would hear me. I could feel his voice rumbling up in his chest.

"Alright, you need somewhere to sleep. I'm staying his guest bedroom, so you can sleep there." I nodded my head and murmured again. I vaguely remember feeling him pick me up and carry me to a room that smelled like him and the smoke that would never come off of his clothes. It wasn't a pleasant smell, but for now I would get used to it.

Suddenly, I was someplace else. All of the people who I had known who had died were around me. They chanted words. The way they spoke sounded familiar, but I couldn't comprehend what they were saying. I knew the language, but nothing translated. They started chanting a round. The round turned to random screaming and chanting. There was smoke seeping through the black floor. Everything was black. I was in near pitch darkness. The only thing I could see now was swirling smoke and the faces of the dead.

I opened my mouth to speak, but instead swallowed the gas coming from below. It smelled like burning flesh and hair. I tried doubling over, but my body was rigid and paralyzed. I knew it was a dream, it had to be a dream, but I was a little scared.

The fading faces started decomposing. They yelled and chanted louder and louder. Some of them lashed out at me. My mother sneered at me. The little boy I couldn't save a few years ago bared his teeth at me. If I could have done anything I would've have been crying hysterically.

I tried moving again, but nothing happened. I couldn't feel my hands or feet or legs or anything. Everything was gone. I felt like mist, I felt like I wasn't real, like I was nothingness. There were flowers above me. They were white with a bright green center. They hung down from the ceiling from long, thin vines that intertwined to create a strong rope.

Then, it all stopped. The chanting, the people, the smoke, it was all just gone. The blackness faded into a deep indigo. I heard someone's voice, but it was so far away. It was too far away for me to make out any of their words. I wanted to listen to the familiar sound, but I couldn't concentrate with the deafening silence.

I forced myself to take three deep breaths and listen again. It was Motoki. He was calling for something, for someone. It was urgent or panicked, instead it was hopeful. He was calling my name, but then his voice changed. It became deeper and more monotone until….

I woke up with Ginko leaning over me, looking a bit concerned.

"Are you alright?" He knelled down next to me as I sat up. It had been an odd, unneeded dream.

"I was just having a bad dream," I shrugged.

"You were screaming in your sleep." I just shrugged again and sat down, facing him.

"Is Adashino back?"

"…Uh, no. Some kid came running up here with a message from him, not too long ago. He's spending the night with a woman." I chuckled at how uncomfortable he became talking about these kinds of things.

"You don't have to speak so stiffly about things like that." I smiled and got a smirk out of him. "You're spending the night with a woman, aren't you?" I set my chin on my fists.

He leaned in closer than necessary and took the cigarette out of his mouth. I leaned back a little away from him. He smirked again. "You don't need to be so stiff about me doing this."

"You don't need to smile like a sadist." I pouted and put my hands on the ground. He chuckled and put his cigarette out on a damp piece of charred cloth sitting on the ground. The incense was still burning and sending out smoke everywhere, keeping the small beast away for now.

"I didn't think that I was…"

"You always do when you think something's funny!" He smiled, half laughing and pressed his lips against mine firmly. My arms wrapped tightly around his neck and pulled him closer to me.

I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes the next day, sitting up next to Ginko. The sun was streaming through the windows and the air was crisp, but warm. I stretched my limbs and began lighting the incense one at a time, trying not to burn myself in my half-asleep state. As the man's breathing changed I realized he had been awake for quite some time.

Glimpsing back at him, I thought back to the night before and blushed furiously and suddenly. I popped my neck and back once more and sat down next to him. He was obnoxiously pretending to be asleep, loudly snoring and squeezing his eyes together. I lied down a quietly as I could next to him and flicked him in the ear twice.

I went to flick him a third time, but he was up in a start, grabbed my wrist, forced me down on his body, and kissed me quickly. I pushed down his chest with my hands and crossed y arms.

"Don't do that."

"You enjoyed it, didn't you?"

"Beside the point." I muttered.

I turned away from him, smiling.

"Well I'm sure I can tell when you like something."

He sat behind me and set his chin on my shoulder, breathing into my ear.

"Don't be strange!" I tried pushing him off of me with much less force than I could muster.

"I can live with being strange. It's better than being called a sadist…" I thought for a moment, but could recall no instance in which I called him that name.

"When did I call you that?" I tried filling in the spaces of our conversation the best I could.

"Last night. You don't remember?"

"…No…."

"You're hopeless."

"You're a jerk."

I had called him that so many times I had lost count. It seemed a bit harsh now that I thought about it, but I had never really thought about how much I might actually hurt him. I thought again, it was Ginko. He would tell me (or rather scold me) if I really was being rude.

"You don't think I'm a jerk, stop lying." His monotone didn't sway bit.

The playful bantering went on for a while more. We laughed and ran around the house. We ate some of the food I had brought with me. After some odd hours we sat and read some of the interesting scrolls Adashino had lying around. I was on my back and listening to Ginko read it when we heard the loud crash.


	12. Before

The loud crash was followed by screaming. The screaming was led by more crashing and so on. It was a vicious cycle which I could not yet understand. I jumped to my feet quickly and rushed outside. It took Ginko a bit longer to run outside and closer to the village with me.

The first thing I saw was dust. The second was _that_ mushi. It was the one that had left me exhausted right before I had met Ginko. That was so long ago and I thought I had placed it somewhere it would never need or want to leave. Apparently this difficult little thing had decided against my better wishes.

I swore under my breath as the thing thrashed about, the fishermen trying to capture it in their nets. It was serpentine, and only a mere twenty feet long, but it was dangerous. It slept in the wet dirt and only emerged if agitated. And they put up a hell of a fight when you were trying to get them away from normal people.

I coughed a little on the dusty air, walking closer to the fight. Ginko and Adashino were next to me then, breathing deeply, Ginko heaving with a cigarette in his mouth.

"What's going on?!" The doctors' voice raised by a few notches. He looked scared and tired.

I took a breath. "It's a mushi." I rubbed at one of my watering eyes. The more the men attacked it, the bigger it became. That was its defense mechanism; you upset it, it gets bigger until it can swallow you whole or scare you away. "Tell the men to stop attacking it!" I yelled over the shouting.

"Ginko already went on to do that…I-I'll go." He answered, noticing my confused look, and jogged off in another direction. I wrapped a cloth around my head, covering my mouth and nose from the dirt. Sneezing and coughing was inevitable, but I could hold it off for a few more hours while I fixed this.

I could hear shouts of defiance from the men tying down the creature. I ran to the men, the villagers, the fishers. I tried explaining to them the best I could, but he didn't seem to understand, that or he didn't he hear me. I went on to the next man as hurriedly and as swiftly as I could in the growing crowd.

It was a younger man this time, he might have been fifteen at the most and he look terrified. His eyes were large and his mouth was slightly agape. I ran to him and shook his shoulder to get his attention.

"YOU BETTER GO, MISS.!" He screamed over the noise. "YOU'LL GET YOURSELF HURT! THIS THING MUST BE 'BOUT TWENTY FEET YET!" I shushed him with a simple hand gesture.

"**YOU NEED TO LET GO OF THE ROPE! THE MORE YOU SCARE IT, THE BIGGER IT WILL GET! I AM A MUSHI MASTER, TRUST ME!"** I screamed so loudly, I was certain my voice was going to die out right there.

The boy looked at me for a moment. Then he looked back at the monster and nodded. The rope slipped from his tanned hands and he ran. He yelled to the other men, warning them of the dangers. They all soon dropped their ropes as well.

I could see Ginko and Adashino weaving in and out of the men and women holding ropes, and soon three fourths of the people had dropped their ropes and ran. I ran up to the tall man with white hair and tugged on his shirt to get his attention.

There were only three more people stubbornly holding on to their ropes, some even trying to pick up some of the ropes that had been left to lie on the dirt. After only some minor persuasion by the town doctor (and possibly some blackmailing), they released the ropes and ran. As did Adashino when he realized the thing was completely free now.

The waves were crashing close to us. The mushi had been keeping its blind eyes locked on us until it felt a drop of water on its pale green tail. Its head snapped to inspect the water with its long tongue. It slowly turned its whole coiled body and flicked the salty water with its tongue and head, inspecting it.

Immediately, it shrunk nearly five feet. It got closer to the water and shrunk another five feet. It was hard to guess because of how winded its body was, but it seemed to span about fifteen feet now. I looked at Ginko and nodded.

Slowly and quietly running past the slowly shrinking mushi, I scooped a handful of dirt, sand, and water. I tiptoed up to its middle and gently slopped the earth and water onto its sore back. All of my muscles tensed as I touched it, I remembered what it had done to people in the last village. It made a strange purring noise, shrunk more, and delved deeper into the water. I urged it on in my head, hoping it might possibly be able to understand me.

After nearly ten minutes of Ginko and me softly slathering it with mud, going by trial and error of what to do exactly, it disappeared into the earth below the sea. I exhaled with exhaustion and rubbed my temples.

Before I could release the tension from my arms and legs there was yelling. It wasn't the kind that went with terror, it went with the kind that meant someone was mad. And the one yelling was Ginko.

I stopped rubbing my neck as I looked his way. He was yelling at Adashino. To be honest it wasn't surprising, but I couldn't see any reason why. Adashino didn't yell back at all.

I walked closer to them.

"If you didn't collect your idiotic supernatural things this wouldn't happen. This isn't the first time and I imagine it won't be the last!" It was odd to hear him yell. He wasn't screaming, not by a long shot, but he was talking in more of a normal tone instead of his usual quiet voice. The scariest part was how rough and harsh his voice was. It pushed all blame on to the poor man who was receiving it.

"It didn't come from me and no one was seriously injured." I could just make out the doctors voice.

Ginko opened his mouth again. "It wasn't his fault."

In the time between Adashino whispering and Ginko opening his mouth I had stepped between the two men and placed my hand on Ginko's chest. I kept my eyes on the ground for a second or two until I spoke again.

"Do not just blame him for something, I don't care if he's brought bad things upon this village before, you can't just do that." I moved my hand to hold onto his arm, his muscles were tense.

"…I apologize… Adashino." The tension drained from his arm almost immediately, but he didn't look too happy. Adashino on the other hand looked more smug than I had ever seen a man let alone a man.

"Oh, Ginko, I'm so happy you've decided to apologize to me and forgive me for everything!"

"Don't push it," Ginko crossed his arms and I let my hand drop. "Do you want to go soon?" He looked at me, but all I could do was gaze back, confused.

"You want me to go with you?"

Adashino walked away casually.

I realized instantly it was a stupid question, but I had asked it because….I don't know, maybe I still wasn't sure.

"Nope, I was joking and I kissed you just for the hell of it last night." He looked at me, sarcasm seeping from his very being. I crossed my arms and looked away from him.

"Oh, that's exactly what I thought. I guess I'll just go back to the house and be on my way. All alone, no one to ever talk to, being a lonely sole once more." I pouted and began jogging to the house.

I wasn't really trying to run away, but Ginko caught up with me insanely easily and caught me in his arms, throwing me over his shoulder like I weighed the same as a sack of rice.

"Hey!" It hit his back lightly with my fists. "I was joking," I whined, "Let me gooooo."

"Meh, I don't trust you enough." I could hear the smile in his voice.

* * *

"Stop it…" I smiled and pushed him away. "We both need to leave before more of them start coming." I skipped out of the door of the house with my pack strapped to me with Ginko following close behind. He probably had a stupid or weird grin on his face behind his cigarette, but I couldn't see him.

After close to an hour of walking and talking, I remembered something rather important. "We need to go see Motoki, soon."

"Why? He's fine now, usually I just let people go I don't visit up on them unless it's necessary-"

"I promised to see him again and so we must, or just me at least, I guess you could stay in the Hermit House if you really don't want to see the man." I thought aloud.

"I suppose it wouldn't be entirely painful to visit the old pervert again," he rolled his eyes and walked a little faster. Maybe it was just subconscious, but it made a huge difference for me. I was incredibly short compared to him and had to take almost two steps for every one of his. It wasn't fair, but I jogged to catch up to him.

We were well into the forest and my incense sticks had burned out long ago. The sun was setting and the air become a little colder. I shivered under my kimono. Ginko glanced at me out of the corner of his eye.

"Do you want to set up camp?" He slowed to a stop in front of me while I yawned and stretched.

"Sure…"

We had eaten, set up camp, and lied down in our now joined sleeping mats in a little under an hour. I yawned again and sat up on one arm.

"How did you ever become friends with Adashino?" The question had bothered me all day.

"…Well…" he crossed his arms behind his head and regaled me with the somewhat ridiculous story of two teenage boys.


	13. The Storm

I halfheartedly laughed at the end of his story, and leaned my head against his shoulder. I was tired and in great need of sleep. I believe I was more emotionally exhausted than anything else. I wasn't used to constantly being with other people, let alone being 'romantic' with other people. I didn't normally let people into my world and see me too clearly. My façade was there to hide me.

I hadn't even let Ginko in, at least not yet. I was becoming worried about that part of our relationship. It was getting close to the anniversary, it was actually only a few days away, and I knew what was going to happen. The same thing happened every single time.

That day was simply unlucky for me. Everything bad that ever happened to me happened on that damn day. The days were always beautiful. Nature was at a perfect pitch, not loud or soft. Not a single cloud was in the sky and it was warm with a kind of constant gentle breeze. The breeze died out around dusk, but the warm remained. The temperature might drop by a few degrees, but it was always a good kind of weather.

At night, the stars and the moon would shine so bright you would only need a lantern if you might happen to live deep in the forest. Perfect days were the worst, especially that perfect day.

You see, my mother, she died that day. I was born on that day. That day, I was cursed with this odd hair and eyes. The only man I thought of as my father, the man who taught me to be a Mushi Master, died…in front of me. And then, many years later on that day, I couldn't save him. The little boy who wanted to be saved.

Being the person I am, I have saved lives and I have not. But you must understand that many people choose to not let go of their mushi disease which will eventually destroy them. Many do not care to put themselves in situations of trouble to see a glimpse of the golden river. I would be afraid to see what lengths many would go to if they could get a drop of life from the river.

One time, I came across a little boy. He was infected, but he wanted to live. He wanted to live so badly it hurt me to see him every day. He would talk about what he wanted to do when he grew up. He wanted to see many parts of the world you know. He wanted to watch the sunset on the east and west coast to see how different they might be.

I rushed to figure out what was inside of him. What was making him sick and killing him. I couldn't figure out what kind it was, I'd never seen one like it before. His parents had given up on him months ago, but I remained. All of the people in the town, from elders to his old friends accepted that he would die and left it at that. I didn't give up though. He such a heart to live, I knew that he must.

This happened, and it always had happy outcomes, well it was supposed to anyhow. But nothing ever seems to go right. Nothing goes right for me on that day. I stayed with him for a long time. I think it might have been two or three months that I sat at his bedside and listened to him talk about future plans and how surprised he was that I didn't have a husband yet, even though I was just barely sixteen at the time.

I knew he would be dead in a few short days. I even had a half a mind to leave him and let him die completely and utterly alone. I'm not sure why I even thought up such a horrible idea such as that. The answer was simple, but I didn't want to face it. I ran away from everything. I ran away from myself, my family, and from every fault or mistake I had ever made.

It would mark the four year anniversary of his absence.

I sat next to him, watching and waiting for it to happen. He breathed in and then out. In and out. In. Out. His eyes were already closed. His hand was cold in mine. One of my hands was wrapped around his fingers; the other was around his wrist. I didn't cry.

I checked his neck, going by normal procedure. I dug a grave. I'm not certain how long it took me, but when I was done, the perfect night had been sewed into the fabric of our world. I buried him and walked away into a path that had been travelled many times in the woods. I knew that I should be crying, but I couldn't for some reason.

The next day I couldn't stop crying. I hadn't even informed the boys' parents or any of the townspeople what had happened. I guess they probably found out…eventually. To be honest, that was the only thing that really hurt me on that day. I had been expecting my mother and master to die, and I was prepared. I know I should've been prepared ready for him, but I wasn't. I don't think I could've been.

Slowly, I was brought out of my half asleep thoughts by Ginko. "Ruri?" I opened my eyes and lifted my head off of his chest to look at him. "You put your big head on me when you were asleep. It makes it kind of hard to breathe." He sat up on his elbows and poked me in the forehead.

I faked a laugh, "Oh, how nice it is to know that I make you breathless!" I tackled him into a hug and kissed his cheek. He tried pushing me off of his chest, but I clung to him.

"C'mon, get off." I could almost hear him roll his eyes. I heaved a sigh and sat up.

"Fine…" I breathed out and wrapped my arms around my legs. My mind went back to the day. I was worried something else, another horrible thing would happen, and I could bear the thought.

We were a few days away from where he had been buried and I planned on visiting his grave and setting down little flowers I found on the way as I did every year. This year would be a little different with Ginko by my side. But maybe if I snuck out and went to the grave by myself it would be easier and I wouldn't even be a burden on him.

"Something is wrong with you. I can tell you're upset about something" He said matter-of-factly.

I laughed halfheartedly and played it off. "I am sorry to inform you that I don't feel too much but the normal amount of grief every other person in this world does. I'm not upset or remotely sad."

"You are a good liar, you know that don't you?"

"Nothing is wrong."

"If you really don't want to talk about it you don't half to."

"You brought it up."

"So you admit to your sadness?"

"Don't put words in my mouth." I paused and looked up at the sky. "I'm a little sad, but the reason is nothing you need to concern yourself with. The reason is almost silly."

"…Well, we don't have to talk about it."

I was spending my time with the most awkward human alive. Granted, I wasn't one to jump at talking about my feelings either, but I could use it as a punishment of sorts for stirring it up.

"But let's, because you decided to point out that I was sad." I faked a smile.

"You're twisted." I heard him mutter under his breath.

As I told him about the boy and the village, I could feel tears nearly pour over, but I blinked them back. I ended by explaining 'the day' and how I despise it. He didn't say a word, but absentmindedly nodded every now and then. I smiled bitterly.

"I guess it's sort of…idiotic of me to mourn this boy and not feel as sorry as I do for the others that I've seen die. But, he was different and I can't just do that to him. He made me promise to never forget him. I am very sorry if you don't want to, but I'm going to his grave in a few days. I promise it won't take too long though. I just like to toss some flowers on his grave whenever I can.

"Actually I would rather that you didn't come with me. I _will_ end up crying and I refuse to let anyone see me do that. Well at least to the extent that I will be crying by tomorrow evening." I smiled up at the stars. They were always so dull the days leading up to that night.

"Hmm… anyway, I forgot to ask about your ankle. I know you're fine." I nodded, hardly listening to his babbling. "Wait, so you're going to be twenty in a few days?"

I poked at the fire. "When we met I told you I was almost twenty, didn't I?"

"I guess…" he shrugged.

I turned to face him and smiled. "We should go to bed." I felt like a ticking bomb, like I could break at any moment. I hated that vulnerable feeling.

"Yeah," he leaned back on his elbows.

"Ginko?" I was going to cry over him too when I went to the grave. I don't think he really knows about how he's going to die.

"Wh-"

I kissed him softly, before he could finish. My hands were on either side of his neck, right above his shoulders. I pulled away to look at him, surprised. He had the same kind of look on his face.

"S-sorry…I'm sorry." I spluttered out. He laughed. He just laughed in my face. When he was done he pulled me to him and kissed far more passionately than I had thought the quiet man could have. I wrapped my arms around his neck as his hands grazed my waist. We pulled away from each other, breathless.

"…Night." I finally said.

* * *

My head was pounding. My eyes and my stomach hurt from the amount I had been crying. I haphazardly wiped the tears away with the soft sleeve of my black kimono. The cool fabric felt nice on my bloodshot eyes. In the process of wiping the tears off my neck, I managed to scratch myself in the project and draw a small amount of blood.

I smiled, almost laughing at how much of an emotional wreck I really was on the inside.

I took another shaky breath and looked around. I had heard something or someone moving in the trees near me. It might be one of the villagers.

It was Ginko. I might have been mad if I had the energy to be, but I was emotionally and physically exhausted right now. I turned to face away from him as he walked closer and closer, pretending I hadn't seen him at all.

"Ruri," he put his hands gently on my shoulders and turned me to face himself. I stared down at the ground and took one silent, big breath in and out. "Look at me," he pushed my chin up with one hand and my eyes met his.

I blinked once.

"I told you that you didn't need to come."

"I know I didn't. But bothering you is worth going against what you said." He grinned.

"Alright…" I answered dumbly. I was done crying now, but I know the redness of my eyes of face hadn't gone away.

"This isn't healthy you know." He moved his hand away from my face.

"I know." I didn't have the energy.

"Huh, are too exhausted to fight me?" I nodded. "For now, I'll only ask you of one thing." He paused. "From now on do not pin up all of your emotions. You aren't being brave or strong by doing that."

I stopped and thought about it for a second. Maybe it would be easier if I cried more often, at least in instances where I felt I should. But this is what I was used to; this is how I had known how to live since I was young. I whispered my answer in his ear. "We're going back now." I said with my back already towards him and facing the trees, but I was smiling and it was a real smile.

* * *

**I feel like I've posted this extremely late and I'm really sorry. But I have some questions! Do you guys want me to go more in detail with their "physical relationship" orrrrr…..not. I'm definitely willing to, I just wasn't sure if anyone wanted that. As always I would like to know how you all think this is going. Aaaaaand. I will most likely not be able to right any more chapters for about a month. I have finals this week and all next week and auditions for a show this week, rehearsal for that show will start the following week, then five days after school gets out I'm going to a theatre workshop where I stay at a college and get to be in an Off-Broadway performance in one of NYC's smaller theatres (i.e. Orpheum, etc.) Bye!**


	14. Waking Up

I had so many nightmares that night. Every single time I woke up it only took me minutes to fall asleep again. It took less time for me to wake again from terrors. There was death. There was so much death just surrounding me. I knew I needed to run. So I did. But sadly, when I started running, I woke up at Motoki's house. I was all alone, but in an instant I realized it had all been a dream. It had all been an idiotic, pointless, bad dream. I had known about Adashino and where he had lived because of the first time I had met Ginko and looked at some of his memories. I had made up an entire few months in my head for no stupid reason.

I hated myself at that instant. I put my head down in my hands, nearly weeping and laughing all at the same time. E

verything had gone too quickly and nobody had acted quite right the entire dream long. Well…it had been a dream after all. Every single thing I had said and did had been ridiculous, and the same could be said about Ginko.

But I still had questions. The last thing I remembered happening was Ginko walking out to me while I had been in Mo's back yard. I was still wearing what I had worn that day, so maybe I had only been out for a day at the most. I wasn't sure though. I sat up slowly, my back was aching, my leg was on fire, and there was a dull throbbing swelling up in my head. The thin blanket that was covering me fell off, and I finally saw my leg.

The whole length of my left thigh was wrapped in a bandage that had a small amount of blood that had bloomed through the light cloth. I tried standing without moving my knee too much, but I couldn't help but wince and quietly yelp as I walked out of the open doorway. I limped my way through the narrow hallways. I reached my hand up to my head, hoping to balance myself. My fingers brushed a tender spot on my left temple.

After taking a long and slow breath, I could walk normally again. I took careful steps in Mo's main room. He was sitting, facing me, and looking as if he was seeing a ghost. He fumbled with his cup for a moment and then set it down, smiling warmly at me.

I glanced down a figure that was slumped over in a position that had to be uncomfortable. His white hair and his clothes were rumpled, like he hadn't been sleeping well.

"You've awaken." I slid to the wooden floor beside Ginko. Motoki pushed a cup in front of me, it was still warm. I could muster a smile back, so I took the drink and stared at its contents for a few seconds before trying to swallow it. My throat was dry, and the liquid only just managed to help. "He only just dozed off. The poor fella' hasn't had much sleep for 'bout a month now if I think 'bout it. Hasn't given 'imself an hour off once, not since what happened."

I stared at him. "What happened?" I glanced at Ginko and shoved him to his back with my right hand so he wasn't in such a cramped position. I gave my attention to Mo, who for just a second looked as if he was going to laugh, but then turned serious again.

"…He said you might not remember," the old man sighed, he was tired too, "There was a dog, it bit you, knocked you down. You almost died, apparently. He saved you, but he had to use this stuff…you had a weird reaction to it and ended up in a coma and he said you were probably having weird dreams. He said you might have a little trouble getting used to life again." I laughed and set my cup down.

"I had some weird dreams…or nightmares more like." I looked over at Ginko again, then back to Mo. "Wait!" My hands slammed on the table, "I was asleep for a month?! Wait, are you… better?"

"I was rid of that stupid seed a day after you were hurt. Yeah, he's been takin' care of you this entire time. Kept on worryin' to himself when you first went under. He really thought you were gone. But, of course, you're mostly better now. I could say the same for that beast that got you. It just stopped fighting you and him, and it ran away into the trees."

I slowly chewed some pieces of fruit that had been set in a dish in the middle of the small table. We sat in silence for a few minutes. It was just plain silence. Ginko was quietly snoring, and I could hear some people outside. The silence was nice, it felt good.

"Is there a stream or any place I can bathe?" He told me of a deep, clear stream that was only a few paces into the woods.

"And R," I paused in the doorway, "are you sure you don't want to be here when he wakes? He'll be up in a few minutes if I'm not wrong…"

"He'll live," I said swaying back in forth in the doorway. I had become used to this reality easily. I hoped it was real. I wasn't a fan of how anyone had acted in my hallucinations.

Motoki smiled, and I could feel waves a creepy old manliness being sent out from him. "I could just send him to you while you're bathing."

I tried smiling sweetly while I smacked the top of his balding head. "I could just leave forever never to be seen again." I left the old man, who was feigning tears now, to his own devises.

I really needed to bathe. I felt disgusting and I was sure I looked it too. I combed my hands through my hair. It had grown close to an inch compared to what I last remembered it being. I propped a small mirror up on the rocky bank, looking at my face as I rubbed a rinse for hair through my scalp. I tried not to use this stuff too often; even though it made my hair soft and nice looking, I didn't have much of it and it had been an expensive gift or offering from one extremely small village.

I would try to lie and say that I was only at that stream for twenty minutes, maybe half an hour. But I'm trying to be a better person, so I'll be honest and tell you that I was there for close to three hours. I wasn't bathing the entire time, for a portion of the time of was cleaning my clothes, and the other part of the time I was just sitting there on the shore. My muscles felt tired, I didn't feel like moving.

I finally stood and wrapped my plain grey kimono around myself, tying it with a sash that was decorated with small blue flowers. My hair was nearly dry and I felt better now. I grabbed my bag and jogged back to the house.

Ginko was sitting outside, sitting like he usually does, smoking. He looked bored, like he had been waiting. But he also looked tired, and as I got closer, I could see how tired he really looked. By the time I was sitting next to him, he had put out his cigarette.

"I'm awake…Motoki told me what happened." He nodded, absentmindedly. "He said you took care of me the entire time." I tried looking at him.

"You were almost d… gone" I just barely heard the "d" that he had cut off short before saying "gone" in his mumble of words.

"Well I'm not now so now need to worry your pretty, white head. I'm okay now."

"No you're not."

"Pardon?"

"I don't know if you're completely 'okay' now. Follow me," he stood up fluidly and walked into the house as I followed close behind. "The old pervert is taking a nap right now."

I eye him suspiciously. "What?"

"Did you make him go to sleep?"

"I didn't kill him if that's what you mean. I'm not saying I didn't 'make him' though." I smiled, nearly tripping through the doorway.

Now, I couldn't be sure of my emotions towards Ginko. It was hard to remember what I was feeling before I had gone into a coma of sorts. My feelings were forming again. I tried remembering things that had happened between us before the accident. I remembered the day we were in the hot spring, and there were those men who were sent to get me. I smiled at the thought and sat on the ground.

"I need to do one more check up on you." He opened a small wooden box that held some medical instruments.

"One more?" I put my chin on my fists, watching him.

"I had to make sure you were doing well with the medicine…" he trailed off, mumbling something that didn't sound too important. I absentmindedly nodded. "The only thing I need to do is check your breathing and pulse, to make sure they've regulated to normal."

"They weren't normal?"

"The dreams, or hallucinations, you were having were causing you to have an accelerated heart rate. You were only in a coma because you had a bad reaction to the medicine I gave you in the first place."

"…Oh." I curled my knees up to my chest. The dreams felt more like dreams now. I knew it should be a good thing, but it gave me a weird feeling. The memories from the dreams were disappearing, like they should be.

"Lie down," he said pushing my shoulder a little bit. I complied, resting my arms by my sides. He was done quickly, and I sat back up. "You're fine, Ruri."

I looked around and realized something. "Why are all of my things packed up? Wait, you came out to me right before I was hurt, what did you want to say?"

"I just figured that if you woke up you want to leave as soon as possible, and if you didn't wake up…"

"So if I had died you would've just tossed everything out?" I became annoyed.

"It would've been harder to pick up and throw it away after you were gone." I opened my mouth to retort, but closed it quickly. I was taken aback by what he had said. I stood up so that I was a little over a head taller than him, he was sitting straight up on my knees.

"Answer my second question."

"I don't remember…" he answered much too quickly.

"Yes, you do." I countered. He was intelligent, he remembered.

"It doesn't matter." He stood up quickly to tower over me.

"It matters," I whispered out and breathed in a thimble-full of air, "Though, you obviously don't want to talk about it…so I'll just forget about it." I snatched my bag from the floor. "Just remember, you won't ever see me again. Anything you want to say you should get out now." I didn't know why I was so mad all of sudden. I was confused, and wanted to be alone now.

I walked to the door, and he put his hand on my shoulder. I stopped moving immediately. "Listen, you're going to strain yourself too much if you go alone, I know you and what you'll do."

It was true; I would do something stupid for something else. I would try anything to save anyone I came across. I didn't realize I was still fragile though, susceptible to being hurt to a farther level. My leg hurt, the bandages probably needed to be changed too.

"You know," I turned to face him, "You didn't need to pack everything in my bag away. I'm sure there were some things in there that you could've used. I may not be very useful any time else, but I do have some pretty nice medicines in that bag." I laughed off the insult to myself, I hadn't meant to put it in there it had just slipped out.

He sighed deeply, "Let's get going." He pulled on my elbow and led me through the passageways of Motoki's house. The old man was sleeping now, he wouldn't know that we had left until he woke later in the afternoon.

As we made it to the unused walking trail I stopped Ginko, and pulled my arm from his light grasp. The town had stared at us as we had walked from it, some smiled and waved and some just looked curious. That was always the most fun part I thought, leaving that is.

"Thank you… for helping me." My voice was caught up in my throat. It was more difficult to thank him than I thought. My ego usually always got in my way, and now was no exception. He barely acknowledged my praise by simply shrugging. For a second, and only a second, I wished for my dreamscape life back. But then I looked around, and smiled. This life could work for me, it had worked for the last twenty years of my life.

I almost stopped walking. "Ginko, exactly how many days was I sleeping?"

"Thirty three," he answered without pause. "Why?"

"I'm twenty now, and I wasn't even awake to know about it." I stomped my foot, but kept on walking.

* * *

**That was fun. I've wanted to write this chapter since I started writing this story. I really was going to write another chapter while she was still in her dream/hallucination world. I liked how it turned out. But now… they've got to get together. Also please review, I don't care if it's three words or whatever just please.**


	15. Tunnel Chase

**Okay so… just to recap what happened (I know it was really kind of confusing, but that's what I like writing…slightly confusing things): None of that romance stuff happened between Ruri and Ginko, she was attacked by a dog at Motoki's house and was hurt so badly Ginko decided to use this medicine on her. She had an adverse reaction to this medicine and went into a comatose of sorts where she had dreams. These dreams have been chapters 8-13, since this was told in her point of view you basically experienced her dreams that she was having about her and Ginko. She wakes up from her comatose almost a month after she fell asleep (her birthday happened during this time). When she wakes up she isn't certain whether or not she really still has feelings for Ginko, as the last couple months of her life have been a dream. Ginko and her depart for more mushi adventures!**

* * *

"Wait," I stuck my hand out to stop Ginko. It was almost dusk of the second day I had been awake, and I was still full of energy.

"What?" I couldn't tell whether he was serious or exasperated.

"Didn't you hear that?" The leaves were rustling in an unnatural way.

"Hear wh-"

"Listen." I couldn't hear it anymore. The forest was silent, but unnaturally so now. All of the crickets, all of the insects had become so quiet so suddenly. The soundless trees worried me more than the rustling had. Nothing happened though, nobody dashed out at us in the suspense and not a single animal made itself known. Finally, after several painful seconds, I heard one cricket begin chirping again, then a cicada began, a few more insects buzzed around and soon the woods were normal again.

"There's nothing." His voice broke me out of a trance, I let go of a breath I had been holding. I tripped to catch up to him.

"But after the noise, didn't you hear that?"

"Ruri, it was completely silent." He sounded like a mother telling her child that some imaginary creature didn't exist.

"That's my point, even if you didn't hear the first sound, you heard the silence. The forest isn't supposed to be quiet. It's _never_ quiet without reason."

"You're worrying too much." He lit the cigarette in his mouth with a little piece of flint.

"Why are you being so defiant to my thought? I know that you think that was weird too, and-"

"You just became better. I have staying up almost every day and night watching over you, feeding you, making sure you were going to live. I would rather some other terrible thing not happen at the moment."

There was more rustling, but I wasn't paying attention and didn't hear it. "Don't make it sound like I want something bad to happen."

"Ruri…"

"I wouldn't ever even wish for something bad to happen. I'd just like to be safe if something does happen-"

"Ruri!" His voice dropped and his hand gripped my shoulder harder than I imagine he intended to.

"Don't 'Ruri' me, I don't even like that name and you know I don't. I don't mean to be or sound rude but you really shouldn't make assumptions as to wh-"

A hand slapped over my mouth quickly, but softly. His hands were softer than I imagined, not like baby skin, but not extremely rough either. The sharp scent of the smoke invaded my nose, but it didn't make me gag.

"Be quiet." He hissed. I tried to pull away, but as soon as my shoulders moved an both of my hands reached up to pull his away from my face, another arm quickly snapped over my front. I dropped my hands to his arm that was held against my collar bone, lightly trying to pull him away from me. As soon as I tugged a little, he pulled me to his chest.

Where my hand was resting on his wrist, I could feel his pulse racing. There was a sense of dread, the slow kind that crept over us so slowly I was sure this was much worse than anything that could possibly come next. Unsurprisingly, I was wrong.

We were surrounded by five men in an instant. I recognized two of them, they had been the ones who had found Ginko and I at the tavern hot spring. They all had this sick grin on their face, well the two that I could see. In a few more seconds, Ginko had moved his arms away from me and now had his back pressed against mine. One of the men took a step toward us, making me subconsciously take a step even closer to Ginko.

"I see the little girl has gotten herself a man." One of them sneered, his words made me cringe.

"He was the one we seen at that 'ot spring with some girl. I wonder who she was." Another one of them spat. I couldn't see the man, but he sounded unintelligent.

"He's not 'my man'." I said evenly. I glanced to my right too quickly for any of them to notice, there was a hole in their formation.

"Then I s'pose he wouldn't care what we do with you." I ignored the comment even though I was somewhat certain he would care what they did with me.

"Why do you waste you villages' time and money trying to catch me?" I jabbed Ginko in the back with my right arm as nonchalantly as possible.

"You need to be caught." They all took a step closer to us. I intertwined my fingers with his, hoping it would make me look a bit more scared than I actually was.

"She's lyin'!" The stupid one now had license to speak, "Those two are definitely together, when we were at that spring they were both bare naked and holdin' onta each other." I tapped his hand once with three of my fingers and muttered under my breath.

Another rolled his eyes and punched the idiot who spoke last in the neck. I tapped his hand again with only two fingers this time, and muttered.

"Shut up!" The one who muttered said.

"…one!"

Ginko and I did manage to start out running at the same time, but as soon as we started my leg gave out. Before I could even react or look behind to see how close they all were to killing me, I was frantically picked up. I wrapped my arms around his neck, locking my fingers together.

"We seem to get in a lot of trouble when we're together. Or maybe I'm just cursed."

"Save your speech for after we live," he huffed and dropped me to the ground, not bothering with grace at the time.

"What're you doing?!" I could hear the men crashing around in, stomping all over the sticks on the ground, making snapping noises so loud and out of place.

"Getting us…" he moved aside a rock that led to a dark, dripping, cave, "someplace safe."

I couldn't help but gawk at the passage for a few moments until I was harshly shoved into the space. I slipped on one of the rocks and tried to stand before the rock was put back into place and we were in total darkness.

"I can't see anything."

"Hmm, I wonder why?" It was a barely audible mumble.

"If I could see, I would slap you."

We walked on in silence for a long while longer, Ginko accidently bumping me every now and then was the only way I could tell he was there. My head hit a small stalactite as I bumped my foot on a stalagmite. The water was getting faster around my knees. As I tripped and stumbled, I hiked my kimono up and tucked the dripping garment under my sash so it now only reached mid-thigh.

"The water's so high," I breathed, "How much longer?" The hot and stuffy air was getting annoying and nearly too much to bear.

"Just a little bit further." He sounded as if he was talking to a child, lying to a child to be more specific. I couldn't see any kind of tiny light at the end of the tunnel.

From there on, it felt like we were walking for hours before he told me to stop.

"Get behind me." I complied and we squished by each other in the space that was now only a yard wide. There was scuffling, and then a sound of rock rubbing against another rock. Then, a light so bright it hurt to even look away from it shining through the opening. "Come on," he called to me as I looked up again. I used my good leg and his hand to help hoist myself out of the hole and into the light.

"Where are we?" I said looking around. We were at the edge the forest and I could a little town hidden behind the branches.

"We're a few miles north of where we started." He spoke to the ground, unrolling his pants from where there were on his knee. I nodded and took my bag from him. As I began walking he purposely coughed under his breath.

"Yes?" I slowly turned to find him avoiding eye contact with me.

"You might want to fix that." I suddenly remembered my clothing that was hiked up and tucked under.

"Oh yeah," I loosed my sash and let the damp fabric fall, "It had to pull it up really high so it wouldn't get too wet," I said as I tightened the obi again.

"The water wasn't that high." He started as we began walking.

"I'm not that tall, Giant Man."

"I'm not a giant." You could hear his eye roll through the sentence.

"You're over a foot taller than me. You are a giant."

"You are a midget."

"No, I'm not."

"Mhmm…"

"I'm in between being short and being average, so don't call _me_ a midget." He sighed and I knew our bantering was over. We silently walked into the village, and Ginko bought us a room in a tavern. This man seemed a bit more believable when he said that there were two beds in this room. As we walked in, I realized something: **All** tavern owners lie.

There was only one bed, once again, in the room.

"Give me your sleeping mat." He grumbled, pulling his own out.

"No, you can sleep on the bed; I'll take your mat." He opened his mouth to argue, but I grabbed his mat before he could.

"Please, I owe you a few things for what you did. This is the least and the first thing I can do for you." He gave me a long look before sitting on the larger bed mat and watching me roll out the two smaller, thinner mats. I plopped onto his mat, sitting closely to him.

"I don't know why you helped me, or why you cared for me before, but thank you." I turned my head to quickly kiss his cheek. Well, that's what I had planned to do in the two second that I thought about doing it. But, at the same moment, Ginko decided to turn his head to face me.

My lips caught the corner of his, and I pulled away quickly, blushing. His face wasn't any less red. "Sorry." Both of us said at once.

* * *

**So…I wonder who sent that dog to hurt/kill Ruri? I wonder…anyway please review blah, blah, blah. I hope you like it, blah, blah, blah. Sorry if this took a while, I'm currently laying out the plot for a Ouran High School Host Club and a Teen Titans fic that I'm going to be posting in a long while, y'know figuring out every little thing that's going to happen, figuring out everything about my OC's. I just kind of winged it with this one because I didn't really think anyone would read it, but I'm pretty happy with how it turned out J thanks guys!**


End file.
